


And Love Is Left In End

by CloudAtlas



Series: A Safety In The End [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (sort of), Bisexuality, Blow Jobs, Deaf Clint Barton, Developing Relationship, Friendship, Kissing, Kissing in the Rain, Light Dom/sub, Multi, Orgasm Delay/Denial, POV Clint Barton, Polyamory, Relationship Negotiation, Strip Tease, Threesome - F/M/M, Thunderstorms, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-09
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2019-01-19 23:11:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12420210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/pseuds/CloudAtlas
Summary: Luke's baby arriving early can only ruin Clint's weekend plans so much.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WOW OKAY SO THIS GOT OUT OF HAND. 
> 
> Once again, thanks to **geckoholic** and **inkvoices**. The first scene is directly influenced by [this painting](https://68.media.tumblr.com/2095f76f7aeefa1ba0d54b1a155343aa/tumblr_olhmepZ5Sr1s4o8wxo1_r1_540.jpg) that I found via **euclase** on tumblr which just _screamed_ Bucky to me. And if you're wondering, this takes place some undetermined time after the events of Brought to His Autumn. Maybe a month? I'm not sure.
> 
> And yup, you guessed it. Title still from [Heavenly Father by Bon Iver](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAoADCSpD-8), which is still amazing.
> 
>  **ETA Dec 2018:** This fic has now been Ameripicked by the wonderful **meatball42**.  <3

There are days that Clint regrets the fact he lives only four floors above his workplace; days that are so long and loud and headache inducing that a half hour walk to get home would be a blessing. Fresh air and open spaces.

Today is not one of those days.

“Get some sleep, Clint.”

Clint waves at Kate in lieu of an answer. It doesn’t feel like it saves him any energy though; his _bones_ feel exhausted.

“I’m sorry about your evening.”

Kate’s voice is quiet behind him as he rubs his hand over his face and he double checks the front doors are locked before heading back towards the bar. It’s just him and Kate now. Miles, as usual, has been allowed to leave five minutes early, so he doesn’t have to wait nearly an hour for the next bus, and Noah shot off as soon as the money was counted because ‘it’s Friday night and I’m gonna get _laid_.’ Which is an admirable sentiment – that was, after all, Clint’s original plan.

He’d come in at eleven today and was going to be so productive – get all the orders and bills and payroll and all that boring shit done – so he could leave at six thirty and go on a _date._ But then Luke had rang to say that he was on his way to the hospital, because Jess was in labour _right now,_ and he was really sorry but he wouldn’t be coming in. And obviously this happened the week Melinda’s on holiday, leaving Clint with a fourteen hour shift on a busy Friday night.

“Can’t tell a baby not to get born just ‘cause you’ve got some epic sex planned,” Clint says, trying not to sound too put out.

Kate makes a face.

“Anyway.” Clint turns off the lights and leads Kate through to the back door. “Whatever. It’s done now. And I have the weekend off and two incredibly hot people to spend it with. Plus, a photo.”

He digs out his phone and holds it out to Kate, but she doesn’t try and take it. She doesn’t even look at it. Clint can’t help the smirk that finds its way onto his face. Kate had learnt very quickly after meeting him in San Francisco that snooping on Clint’s phone means seeing about a billion photos not even remotely safe for work. Thanks to Natasha he’s much better at organising that stuff now – it genuinely did all used to go on the same camera roll – but Kate still refuses to look until Clint tells her exactly what he wants to show her in advance.

“Of the baby,” Clint clarifies, and he’s hardly finished the words before Kate snatches the phone from his hand.

“What the hell!? Why wouldn’t you tell me that _immediately_?”

Clint shrugs and only puts up a token effort to avoid Kate’s punch to the shoulder.

“Aw, they’re cute!”

“She.”

“She’s cute! Does she have a name yet?”

“Not that I know of. I think the photo is mostly just to prove Luke wasn’t making shit up.”

Kate stares at the photo a little longer, the light from the screen bathing her face in ethereal blues.

“This is going to fuck with your schedule, isn’t it?”

Clint groans and it’s not at all faked. “So much. But that’s a problem for future-me. I’ve got the weekend covered, just about, and that’s all I care about right now.”

“We’ll make sure we don’t have to call you,” Kate says, handing his phone back. “Now go.” She gives him a brief one-armed hug. “Sleep. Say hi to Nat for me.”

Clint nods in response and then Kate’s gone, the heavy back door slamming shut, leaving him in silence with the only light coming from the emergency exit sign. He sighs and scrubs his hand over his face again.

God, he’s fucking exhausted. He feels tacky and itchy and he just wants to take off his ears and not have to be upright and cognizant anymore. _Urgh_.

He’d messaged both Nat and James as soon as Luke had called, apologising for the dramatic change in plans, he’d only been half aware of the replies he’d received – _don’t worry_ and _we have the whole weekend_ and _say congrats from me!_ – so he’s honestly not expecting to hear voices coming from his apartment once he’s managed to drag himself up four flights of stairs. He figured they’d meet up tomorrow or something.

It sounds like Natasha’s giggling. And pretty loudly, if his ears can pick it up.

It takes him two tries to get his key in the lock and the view that greets him, once he’s toed his shoes off by the door and dumped his keys, robs him of any remaining motor function or higher brain power he might have managed to scrape together.

There are two empty wine bottles on the counter, along with two half full glasses of red wine and what looks like the entire contents of one of Natasha's very large bags of makeup. There’re lipsticks and eyeliners and mascara wands, tubes of lipgloss, bottles of nail polish, blusher and eye shadow and eyebrow tint. And then, sat behind the counter, there’s James – shirtless, looking loose and spaced out, mouth red and wet – and Natasha – wearing only a strapless bra, cheeks flushed and eyes bright, brandishing a tube of lipstick, arterial red.

“Here,” Natasha says, coaxing and happy, curling her hand around James’ jaw, “try this one.”

James’ eyelashes are sooty and his fingernails are sky blue. He moves slowly, like he’s drunk, and opens his mouth to let Natasha swipe violent red paint across his bottom lip, and Clint makes a sound like he’s been punched in the stomach.

“Hey,” Natasha says – not brightly, because it’s not daytime, but something like it; the night time equivalent. A match in the dark. “We were waiting for you.”

She doesn’t let go of James’ chin, though they’ve both turned to face him.

Natasha's own lipstick is almost gone, but in a way that makes Clint think of eager mouths more than a long day at work – there’s waxy red smeared on James’ chin and neck.

There’s also waxy red on her collar bones.

Clint tries to say something like ‘clearly waiting isn’t your strong suit’. Or maybe, ‘what are you doing?’ But all that comes out is, “Wha – ?”

James makes no reply, but his eyes are fixed on Clint, pupils huge. His mouth looks _bruised_.

“We were waiting for you,” Natasha says again, apparently the only one present who can even attempt real words. She puts down the lipstick and holds out her hand to him. Lets go of James chin. James sways forward briefly, like Natasha’s hands were all that was keeping him in place, like he has to remember to take charge of himself again, and Clint hesitates because he _likes_ that; likes being in charge. But he doesn’t like it as much as Natasha. And he likes being controlled, but not as much as James does, and what if…?

Natasha beckons to him again and he moves because he’s too tired and too overwhelmed not to. Because he always does as Natasha asks.

Coming around the breakfast bar Clint sees what she means by waiting for him. She’s still in her work skirt, her heeled pumps strewn beneath one of the barstools he’d nicked from Slings & Arrows. James is still in his work pants – half hard but clearly unconcerned by it – with his shirt crumpled underneath his bare feet and his jacket and tie discarded on the couch behind him along with the rest of Natasha's clothes. Their knees are pressed together but it’s obvious that they could have been doing a lot more and held off.

“We waited for you,” Natasha says yet again, looking up at Clint stood next to her, her eyes enormous. She curls her hand around his neck, nails scratching through short hair, and brings him down to her mouth. She tastes of red wine and lipstick, of herself and something Clint knows to be James.

“Jesus,” he pants as they part. “Jesus _fucking_ Christ.”

“He’s been so good, Clint,” she whispers into his mouth. “So good.”

Natasha pushes at his jaw and he goes willingly, James’ mouth opening under his like a flower to the sun; soft and worshipful. Clint can smell the sharp scent of barely dried nail polish as James brings his hand up to cup his face and can taste endless coats of lipstick on his skin.

Clint’s too tired for this not to taste like drowning.

James makes a quiet, desperate sound against his tongue and pushes _up_ , standing to try and get closer, to get more, and Clint can’t help but open to him. His eyes slip shut and it’s only when he feels Natasha pressed into his side that he realises she’s moved; her hair tickling his neck as she sucks bruises onto James’ neck before switching to do the same to him, bright points of pleasure-pain against his pulse.

It feels so good. So, so good, but Clint can’t – he’s too tired and he feels like he’s just stepped sideways into a dream, one of those where there are just hands and arms and legs and lips and endless sensation. Natasha palms him through his jeans and he makes a pathetic sound somewhere between a whine and a cry as he tears his mouth from James’.

“Tasha…”

He can’t say it – hasn’t the wherewithal – but he knows Natasha understands. He’s too tired. It’s not no, it’s just not now.

Her eyes are huge and dark, and for a moment everything else falls away; it’s just him and Natasha. Then she nods and smiles and kisses his collarbone, and everything is okay.

“Hey,” he says quietly, turning to James and running a hand up his bare back and neck to curl in his hair.

“Hey,” James replies, pressing his nose briefly into the hinge of Clint’s jaw. He looks like about seventeen of Clint’s dirtiest fantasies. Pliant, soft, open and too beautiful for Clint to deal with.

“What’s a guy who looks like you doing with a shmuck like me?” Clint asks, mostly rhetorical.

James frowns, marring the dreamlike feeling of the moment ever so slightly.

“What’s a guy as amazing as you doing with an idiot like me?” he replies, combative.

The three of them fell into something almost like a relationship so easily Clint sometimes forgets that they’ve only really known each other for less than two months. It’s terrifying, if Clint lets himself think about it, but he’s usually good at locking that thought out. His defences have been asleep for a while now though (lucky bastards) so his brain-to-mouth filter is basically shot. He wouldn’t have said anything if he’d been even slightly more awake.

“And what’s someone as amazing as me doing with you two idiots?” Natasha cuts in, smiling fondly, and they both drop their uneasy staring contest in favour of looking at her.

“C’mon,” she continues, “let’s go to bed before we fall down.”

In a moment of clarity, Clint can see the tiredness in the creases around her eyes, can see it lurking in the angles of James’ body. It’s easy to sidestep into things like this with wine and fatigue on your side – that place where every touch is magic and everything feels molasses-slow – but suddenly Clint sees that he’s not the only one too tired for more than heated make outs.

They weren’t waiting for him to do _more_ ; they were just waiting for _him_.

“Yeah.”

It might be him that speaks, but equally it might be James, who’s tangling his fingers in Clint’s now, as trusting as a child, as Natasha leads them both up the stairs. Clint can’t really tell any more with everything starting to become hazy at the edges, like old film reels.

Natasha strips out of her skirt and tights, throwing on a spare t-shirt while James gently peels Clint out of his top and jeans before starting on his own pants. Once they’re both down to their boxers he curls his hands around Clint’s neck, resting their foreheads together. The smell of nail polish is still there; sharp and momentarily distracting.

“I’m here because I want to be,” James says quietly, in a tone of voice that implies he feels this is important to say out loud. “And if you’re an idiot, then I am too.”

“And I’m the biggest idiot of all of us,” Natasha says gently, pressing herself against their sides, “because I picked both of you.”

Clint snorts out a laugh. “I’ll be better company tomorrow,” he says.

“You were amazing company tonight,” Natasha replies, pulling him down for a long kiss before gently removing his right hearing aid. James’ carefully removes his left.

 _Jessica deliver okay?_ Natasha signs as James climbs into the bed.

It takes a moment for Clint to make the connection, but he nods.

_Girl or boy?_

_Girl_.

Natasha smiles and tilts her head, indicating that it’s Clint’s turn to be in the middle this time. Clint climbs in gratefully, the softness of the sheets making him groan in pleasure. God, but he’s tired. Mentally he congratulations himself for picking such a comfortable bed and he’s asleep almost immediately, with Natasha turning him so she can mould herself to his back and James tangling their legs together the last things he’s aware of.

 

Clint wakes slowly and not entirely unlike surfacing from a deep lake, untangling himself from his bedsheets in increments entirely proportional to how much of the light from the skylights he feels like he can deal with. Which currently feels like very little, despite the fact that he’s pretty sure it’s overcast.

The bed’s empty and has been for a while if the cool sheets are anything to go by. He can’t hear anything, but that means very little considering the fact that he’s not wearing his ears. Nevertheless, something about the whole situation works to make him aware that he bought a Very Large Bed – it’s never felt quite this empty before, he’s sure.

Clint squints over at the clock on his bedside table. The glowing numbers inform him that it’s 11:37. He takes a moment to savour the fact that this is the latest he’s stayed in bed for at least six weeks or so, before hauling himself up and into the bathroom, brushing his teeth furiously as he becomes aware that he didn’t last night. Proof that he must have been shattered; he fucking hates not brushing his teeth before bed.

When he gets downstairs, it’s to find Natasha sat at the breakfast bar in a short purple robe, eating grapes one by one and reading what looks like one of those unnecessarily large novels written by bearded old Russians.

He pulls a face.

 _Ears?_ Natasha signs and Clint nods. She checks he’s wearing his hearing aids every morning after that one time she talked to him for almost half an hour before realising that he hadn’t heard a word she’d said and, what’s more, had had absolutely no idea that she’d been speaking to him in the first place.

“You’d like this one,” Natasha says, closing the book. “There’s a lot of swashbuckling.”

“Since when did old Russians swashbuckle?”

Natasha gives him a strange look. “It’s Dumas, Clint. I’m rereading _The_ _Three Musketeers_.”

“Oh.”

“You’d like it,” she says again. “I’ll get you the audiobook.”

Clint doesn’t really read for fun. He _can_ read, it’s just… difficult. He has dyslexia and never got into the habit as a kid and anyway, reading was for ‘nerds and faggots’ according to his dad. (It’s a pity his dad never lived long enough to see Clint grow up to be both. Well, sort of.) It had taken until his years in San Francisco for him to finally grasp the joy of stories and learning and by then he’d had precisely no money to spend on buying books and no real time to read them. Thank Christ for libraries and audiobooks. So now he has an iPod stuffed full of all manner of interesting audiobooks – from _A Brief History of Time_ to _The Lord of the Rings_ – and some really expensive over-ear headphones that rank among Clint’s top ten possessions.

And he has Natasha, who seems to read a book a week and never listens to him when he says she shouldn’t buy him things.

“Right,” Clint replies. “You do that.”

He looks around the room. “Where’s James?”

“I think,” Natasha replies, holding out her bowl of grapes to him, “he found it a little uncomfortable hanging out here with you asleep upstairs, so I found him some clothes and he went for a run.”

Clint can’t ask why, because he has about seven grapes in his mouth – which turns out to have been a mistake because god they taste awful after having just brushed his teeth – so he wiggles his eyebrows in question instead.

“It’s not like we’ve done a morning like this before,” Natasha points out. “And he’s not as used to this sort of thing as we are. People deal with things in their own way.”

“But _running_?” Clint manages after swallowing the grapes painfully. Urgh, his mouth tastes horrible now.

“How else did you think he was getting thighs like that?”

Clint thinks for a moment before shrugging. “I dunno. I probably just thought he was naturally beautiful and athletic.”

There’s a brief silence in which Clint busies himself thinking about how beautiful and athletic James is and, by Natasha's expression, she’s doing the same. Then she shrugs.

“Not an unreasonable conclusion. Coffee?”

“God yes.”

Sweet elixir of life. And it’ll get rid of the grape-slash-toothpaste taste too.

“Oh good. Make me one too.”

Clint glares at her half-heartedly, but heads over to start up the machine. He’d bought one that was just a step down from professional grade – because once you’ve had good coffee you really can’t go back and, anyway, he has access to industry wholesalers who really know their shit so why not? As a result only he and Kate can actually make coffee with it without breaking anything. Natasha loves to use it as her excuse as to why she can never make breakfast in bed, despite the fact that Clint’s shown her how to use it on three separate occasions.

Clint doesn’t make breakfast in bed on the grounds that it’s a fucking stupid thing to do. He doesn’t want to sleep on crumbs and hot drinks in places he’s very likely to be having sex is just asking for trouble of the burning kind.

Okay, yes, he’s speaking from experience there.

He hands Natasha her cup of coffee and uses his own to nudge the now-tidied-away makeup bag that’s sitting innocuously on the breakfast bar.

“How did this even come about?” he asks.

She stares at it for a moment before laughing.

“You know, I have no idea.” She takes a sip of coffee and tilts her head to the side. “We were just over-tired and a little drunk and… well, you weren’t there. And it seemed sort of… redundant to do anything without you, so we just started chatting about random stuff.”

Clint drags a barstool close enough to Natasha so that when he sits down he can lean against her side. She’s warm and smells of the lavender body wash she keeps in the downstairs shower. She always uses that shower when Clint’s sleeping, even though he wouldn’t be able to hear the water running in the en suite anyway.

“And he mentioned… oh, I can’t remember now, and I said you’d learned how to do makeup from drag queens in Frisco and he said he’d never really worn any, so I just… painted his nails?”

She shrugs, jostling Clint slightly as he takes another mouthful of coffee.

“You can sit pretty close to someone when you’re painting their nails,” she continues and Clint nods. He remembers making out with a lot of people in the makeup rooms of the drag clubs he hung out in. “And, well, you’ve seen his mouth. I just thought it would look better _redder_.”

“Holy fuck yes,” Clint says, groaning slightly at the mental image. James’ mouth should always look like that; red and wet and bruised. _Used_.

Natasha laughs.

“You know, I thought you’d like that.”

“Hey,” Clint says, almost into his coffee, “bruised mouths are my thing.”

“And nice shoulders and great tits,” Natasha points out.

“You know me so well.”

She drops a kiss on the top of his head. “I’d like to think so.”

There’s a beat of silence, where Clint drinks his coffee and Natasha roots around in the bowl for the last of the grapes.

“You know,” Clint says mildly, after draining his cup, “I think the two of you shorted my brain.”

Natasha makes a humming noise in response, her mouth full of grapes again.

“You looked – I don’t even know. Magisterial. And James was just some poor schmuck who fell under your spell. Fucking…” Clint waves his hand vaguely “ _erotic_ , yeah? Like fine wine and dark chocolate and really expensive dildos.”

Natasha bursts out laughing. “What the hell?”

“I dunno,” Clint says defensively. “I felt like I’d stumbled on gods having sex or something.”

She grins down at him for a brief moment, her eyes bright and her expression caught somewhere between awed and disbelieving.

“You are,” she says through a wide smile, “the most” – she kisses his temple – “ridiculous human being I have ever met.”

She wraps him in a tight and rather uncomfortable hug – they’re not really sat in a way that can make it anything else – and Clint puts up a token struggle before slumping awkwardly in her embrace.

“It’s alarming,” Natasha says quietly into his hair, “how happy you make me.”

Clint’s organs feel like they’ve all decided to swap places; a weird squishy feeling with his heart in his throat and his lungs frozen. It’s kind of terrifying and he can feel himself tense up.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Natasha drops a kiss on his head again. “You’re okay.”

Most people, Clint knows, don’t freak out when things like this get said, because for most people falling in love is the hope. Clint has never had that hope because he’d worked out pretty early on that his brain doesn’t work like that. It hadn’t bothered him. He’d been quite content with his friends and his fuck buddies. But then Natasha turned up and threw a spanner into the works, catching him completely unawares. He’s still adjusting.

And it’s not like James wandering into the middle of this has made it easier to work out.

He’d tried explaining it to Kate a couple of months ago but she hadn’t quite understood it. Probably because, just as it’s difficult for people without romantic inclinations to understand what they feel like, it’s difficult for someone _with_ romantic inclinations to understand why all these sudden squishy feelings are fucking terrifying. How Clint’s having trouble trying to work out why Natasha is different. Why, while the sexual and friendship feelings are still there, it doesn’t feel like it did with any of his other long term, friendly, sexual partners.

‘Cause Clint sure as hell didn’t feel this way about Sam, for instance, who is a fantastic human being and fucking stellar in bed.

Which doesn’t actually go any way to explaining why James wandering into this is difficult for Clint. It’s just… he hasn’t worked it out completely yet and it feels like… lying? Offering something he can’t follow through on? Something… something like that. Maybe.

“You’re thinking,” Natasha says, shaking his shoulder gently. “Stop thinking. It’s Saturday morning.”

Clint ignores her. “Do you think it’s shitty of me to… start this? With James?”

“What?”

Natasha moves so that she’s looking him in the eye, a little frown forming between her eyebrows.

“Like – I might not fall for him. I didn’t know I could, before. So… _I’m_ aware that I might not – that it’s the more probable outcome – and _you_ are and _he_ is and… does that make this a shitty thing for me to do? Like – am I leading him on?”

“Are you serious?” she asks incredulously.

Clint raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Yes?”

“You think you’re being disingenuous in dating someone because you might not fall for them.”

“Yes?”

“Oh honey.” Natasha hugs him tightly again. “That’s what dating is. Finding out.”

“But – ”

“Nuh-uh.” Natasha shushes him easily. “That’s what this is. You can ask him – and you should – but I promise it won’t be bothering him.”

Then she slides her hand over his mouth so he can’t protest anymore, and turns them both in time to see James round the corner into the kitchen.

“Hi,” she says chirpily as Clint flails inelegantly in her grip.

“Hi…”

James draws the word out until it’s about seven syllables long and sounds more of a question than a statement, dropping what Clint notes is Natasha's key on the counter before giving them both a confused look, as if he’s unsure as to why he’s suddenly got their undivided attention. Which, Clint thinks as he trails his gaze across James’ body, should be fairly obvious: James looks hella fine in workout gear. Though workout gear might be stretching it. He’s wearing an old pair of Dubs shorts and –

“Wait, I thought I’d lost that t-shirt!” Clint says – or tries to, at least. It comes out muffled and indistinct against Natasha’s palm.

“Huh?” James asks, running his hand – the tattooed one, fuck – through his hair, his blue nails bright against dark, sweaty strands.

“That shirt,” Clint exclaims, as soon as Natasha has removed her hand from his face (and wiped it on his t-shirt). “Where the hell…?”

He turns to Natasha.

“Where did you find it?” he demands, because dammit, he loved that shirt and was really sad when he thought he’d lost it.

“It was with the basketball gear,” she replies, sounding a little defensive, “down the back of your drawer.”

Clint gapes at her.

“What’s so special about it?” James asks before Clint can splutter out something undoubtedly incoherent and stupid, pulling the collar up to wipe his face and putting a hell of a lot of skin on show in the process. Clint is once again _so fucking happy_ that hippie chick insisted he cut off the sleeves.

“It’s my Mardi Gras shirt!” Clint says, flailing a little. “Fucking limited edition and the best one New Orleans have made in _years_.”

James pulls on the hem to get a look at the picture on the front and again: _abs_. Urgh.

“If it’s so special why did you cut the sleeves off?”

Natasha snorts at that.

“Imagine, if you will,” she starts before Clint can answer, “this guy” – she curls her fingers into Clint’s collar and shakes him gently – “drunk off his ass, in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, hanging out with other drunk queers.”

She gives James a pointed look. “Of course the sleeves went. I’m surprised he didn’t lose the shirt _then_.”

“You were there?” James asks.

“Oh no, this was way before I met him. I can just take a very well educated guess.”

“I only didn’t lose the shirt because I gave it to the waitress at the Bourbon Club to look after and I picked it up a couple of days later.”

James snorts. “Was she a good lay?”

“She had absolutely no interest in me and her boyfriend was lovely,” Clint says, probably a little more sharply than he needed to. He doesn’t sleep with _everyone_.

James looks contrite and mutters a sorry, which Clint waves away because it’s fine. They’re still finding the lines and James is still completely new to practically everything Clint and Natasha are as sexually active adults. Of course that means occasionally putting his foot in it.

“Anyway, point is: I love that shirt. Also, you wearing my clothes. I love that too.”

He gives James the biggest shit-eating grin he can manage as James blushes furiously.

“I’m going to shower,” James mumbles.

“No you’re not,” Clint answers. James looks startled, but before he can open his mouth to protest Clint continues, “You’re going to come over here and kiss me. Then you can shower.”

Natasha giggles at that and hooks her chin over his shoulder to watch as James blushes again and then shrugs, aiming for nonchalance and not quite hitting the mark. He doesn’t move though, eyeing Clint warily like he’s going to bite or something.

Clint has to admit that he doesn’t quite _get_ James. He’s completely aware it’s because they’ve had such differing life experiences up to this point that they’ll just deal with these kinds of things differently, but he still finds it… weird. There’s no connection in Clint’s brain between sex and… not commitment exactly, or love (though there isn’t really that either). More… shame, maybe, or something to that effect. Clint says what he wants and sometimes he gets the impression that James finds that startling. He guesses being in love with your best friend for years and years means that being open about how you feel isn’t high on your list of things to do, but he still finds it weird that James is so wrong-footed by flirting when it comes from Clint. Which is sort of unfair really, Clint guesses. He can’t expect everyone to behave like him. He _doesn’t_ expect that. But still, sometimes James is so confident that those times he’s not are a little jarring.

“C’mon,” he says softly. “I wanna good morning kiss.”

That gets James moving, coming around the breakfast bar and pressing his beautiful mouth against Clint’s. And Christ, Clint fucking loves this guy’s mouth. It’s just… so unfair. He pushes into James, Natasha shifting carefully, her chin still hooked over his shoulder, as his hand goes to James’ hair to pull him closer, his mouth opening against James’. God but he could fall into this. Him and Natasha both.

James pulls away, eyes dark and lips red.

“Mornin’.”

His voice is a quiet rasp and it makes Clint shiver.

“Mornin’ gorgeous,” he replies, pressing another kiss to James’ lower lip.

James smiles at that, small and pleased. Natasha makes a sound low in her throat in response before curling her hand around James’ neck, rasping out, “My turn,” and sliding their mouths together over Clint’s shoulder.

Jesus, James and Tasha look good together.

Clint turns to place a bruising kiss against the hinge of James’ jaw and the answering groan from somewhere deep in James’ chest is so fucking good he just has to do it again and again, until James has to brace himself against his thighs, palms hot through the material of his boxers and practically _scorching_ where they come into contact with skin.

“Jesus,” Clint rumbles, sliding his hand through the over-large arm holes of James’ t-shirt to find smooth skin and taut abs, “I could do this forever.”

James makes a muffled noise against Natasha's mouth, his hands tightening on Clint’s thighs, and in return Natasha hums questioningly.

“You two now,” James rasps out, between kisses, but Clint doesn’t feel like letting up and it’s clear Natasha's in no mood to either. Eventually James manages to tear himself away from Natasha's mouth, unsteadily finding his feet, so he can wrap his hands around the back of their necks and turn them to face each other.

“You two now,” he says again, insistent, his eyes huge and hungry and begging, and there’s no way Clint can say no to that.

Clint can’t quantify how it is that kissing Natasha is different to kissing anyone else. He still doesn’t understand where all these soft and squishy feelings come from when her mouth is on his. She’s not _the_ best kisser he’s ever had – that title goes to a woman in Frisco who was something close to a force of nature and a transcendent life experience both – although she’s still fucking spectacular. But it’s not even that. She’s just… better. If it was a choice between the woman from Frisco and Natasha, Natasha would win even if she was snotty and ill and had just thrown up. Natasha would _always win_. And it’s not like Clint makes a habit of lining up past lovers in his head and ranking them, because that’s shitty and crass, but even so, he knows she’d always win.

She’s just _better_. He always wants her around, always wants to be able to lean over and kiss her, always wants to be able to see her smile.

He can feel James’ thumb stroking, metronome even, against his throat and Clint isn’t sure what he expected, but it wasn’t this distance; James’ hands on them, but nothing else. Then Clint hears James push out a shaky breath, hitching slightly at the end; a beautiful, quietly desperate, sound. It’s enough to make him and Natasha part – slowly, hazy eyes seeking each other out before turning to James.

Clint is shocked to find that James looks almost as turned on from watching them kiss as he did those times Clint’s had his hands down James’ pants.

“Jesus,” James says, almost awestruck. “You’re both so fucking beautiful.”

Clint goggles at him. He sounds _so sincere_ – looks so honestly awed – that Clint’s not really sure what to do, but he hears Natasha huff out a quiet laugh, sort of buzzy thanks to his aids, and feels her arms come up to wrap around him. The movement clearly startles James out of whatever reverie he’d found himself in and he blushes, dropping his eyes and his hands and generally fidgeting like a kid caught trying to sneak extra cookies.

“’M gonna shower,” he mumbles and he immediately turns on his heel to head upstairs to the en suite.

“I – what?” Clint says stupidly, to the room at large or to Natasha he’s not sure. James was wearing his Dubs shorts; Clint could _see_ that he was interested in continuing that. _Clint_ is interested in continuing that. He turns his confused gaze on Natasha and she returns his look with a fondly patronising one of her own.

“Oh, Barton.”

“What?”

She kisses him gently on the cheek and he feels it down to his toes.

“Not everything is about sex.”

“I know that.”

“In this context,” she says, “I don’t think you do.”

His confusion must be evident on his face, because Natasha gently grasps his shoulders and turns him on his stool until they’re face to face, their knees bumping awkwardly.

“Do you know what it is James has done?”

Clint frowns. “What do you mean?”

“What James has done is sort of agree to date two people who are already in a relationship. Apart from, we haven’t talked about this yet. Is he dating us? Is he going to fuck you when I’m not there? Is he going to fuck other people? Is he okay with us fucking people that aren’t each other or him?” She swipes a thumb under his eye absentmindedly, her expression impossibly fond. “Does he feel he can initiate?”

“Of course he can initiate.”

“Does he know that?”

“Why wouldn’t he?” Fuck, this is way more complicated that it needs to be. Why are people so _complicated?_

Natasha stares at him for a moment, like she’s trying to work out if he’s bullshitting her or something, and Clint just stares back because he’s honestly still confused. Sam was _so much easier_ than this. Then again, Sam probably didn’t get into this wanting anything more than to get great sex and friendship out of it. Or so he assumes. They’d had a short chat about it at the beginning, where Sam had grinned and said, “Sure I’m up for pizza and getting laid on the regular,” and Clint sort of extrapolated from there. It never came back to bite him on the ass so he figured he’d got it right. Apparently James is very far from being like Sam.

“Okay,” Natasha says, “we’re going to go out. We’re going to take James to Prospect Park, maybe show him the otters at the zoo. We’re going to get food and we’re going to relax, and then we’re going to come back here and we’re going to have to talk.”

“But _why_?” Clint whines. He’s not an idiot. He knew that they’d have to talk about everything at some point, but he’d kinda hoped he’d have epic sex _first_ , before the talk about boundaries and feelings came up. And this talk will _have_ to involve feelings – he can’t just get away with _well I’m cool with anything guys, dunno about you_. God, he’s not… he’s not sure this was a good idea. He’s not _prepared_ for this.

“Do you think I don’t get that this is difficult for you? Do you think you’re the only one out of their comfort zone? Or that I’m the only one that’s noticed?”

“I’m not – ”

“Clint,” and Natasha's voice is firm, brooking no argument, “I’m going to tell you something true.”

Clint straightens up. ‘Something true’ at some point became a code phrase between the two of them. It means that they’re trusting the other person with something they don’t normally share. He’s not sure who came up with it – maybe him, when talking about his shitty dad with her for the first time – but it’s important and Clint always pays attention when Natasha says it.

“I have been in love exactly three times. Alexei and I drifted and that was fine, but Matt and I crashed and burned in a silence populated by lies and unsaid truths, and the other people we used to distract ourselves from those things. After that, you were a fucking revelation.”

Her palms are hot against his cheeks and her eyes are bright and begging him silently to _understand_.

“Sometimes, I see people and I want to wrap them up and present them to you like a cat bringing a dead mouse to their human. _Look what I got you, look how I care_.” She takes a fortifying breath, looking away. “James wasn’t supposed to be anything other than that.” She looks back at him. “Do you – ?” She stops, cuts herself off, frowns and then starts again. “You said you loved me. And you haven’t ever fallen for someone before. But…”

Her fingers are gentle on the shell of his ears.

“What if you fall for him? What if you leave me?”

“ _What_?”

Natasha makes to continue, but Clint barrels over her. “What the fuck Tash? I’m not – fucking hell. I never thought that I’d ever _get this_ , okay? I thought it was some weird thing _other people got_. And I was totally okay with that, I was happy, but it happened anyway and it’s fucking _terrifying,_ but I’m not letting – ” Clint laughs sort of hysterically. “If it’s a competition between you and _anyone else_ , you win, okay?”

Natasha shakes her head. “That’s not – _thank you_. But that’s not the part that’s important right now. I… I know that.” And it sounds like surprise in her voice, but also certainty. “I _know that_ , okay? But the point is I still think that, sometimes. You’re… You’re not the only one who worries about things that may never happen.”

That pulls Clint up short, because of course he knows that Natasha isn’t some perfect robot being, always together and always in control. That would be stupid and disingenuous and disrespecting the magnificent complexity that is Natasha as a human being. But he does, he can at least admit, sometimes believe that Natasha is immune to the sorts of insecurities that he gets. The sorts of insecurities that told him throughout his twenties that maybe he was defective because he never felt what everyone told him he should, or that tell him to this day that he’s somehow failed because he’s an uneducated barkeep rather than, say, a Masters level Stark Industries R&D developer or something equally snazzy that in reality he has no interest in.

“Okay,” he says after a moment. “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Natasha smiles at him, cupping his face and placing a gentle kiss on his lips. “Go shower. I’m going to get changed and then we’re going to Prospect Park.”

“No,” Clint whines, drawing the word out. “Don’t get changed.”

Sometime during the course of the morning Natasha’s robe has fallen open, and Clint can see the pale curve of her breasts and one dusky pink nipple. Couple that with the fact that she’s only wearing some pretty green lace panties and there’s an enormous amount of skin on display. Clint splays his hands around the curve of her ribs and becomes suddenly very aware that he’s been low level aroused since he came in last night, to find James lust-drunk and covered in lipstick with Natasha sat next to him like the most magnificent of conquering queens.

Natasha laughs, loud and delighted.

“Get off me, you animal,” she says, batting his hands away. “Go shower. James will be out soon.”

James has been taking entirely too long in the shower, now that Clint thinks about it. But then his brain sparks over why that might be and he has to forcibly wrench his mind back to the here and now.

“ _Go_.” Natasha points at the downstairs bathroom. “I’ll find you some clothes. You’ve got five minutes.”

 

Clint’s wardrobe is a potluck of joke clothes bought for him by Kate and clothes left behind by various one night stands. He _does_ go clothes shopping himself, but regardless, Natasha always manages to find that one shirt someone left behind that’s both not even remotely Clint’s aesthetic and _exactly Clint’s size_. To wit: the polo shirt in a rather unflattering shade of olive green waiting for him when he gets out of the shower.

“When did I ever sleep with someone who wears olive green polo shirts?” Clint asks, coming out of the downstairs bathroom. “What was I thinking?”

James looks startled, because of course it’s James waiting in the kitchen. Where the hell is Natasha?

“What?”

Clint waves him away. “Never mind. I gotta go and find a better shirt. Tasha is screwing with me.”

That shirt is definitely going to Goodwill. He’s never wearing an _olive green polo shirt_. Honestly.

Natasha is in his bedroom, zipping up her boots.

“Aw, no polo shirts then?” she says with a smirk.

“You’re hilarious.”

“Hey, you slept with them, whoever they were.”

Clint digs out one of his SF Pride Volunteer shirts. It’s a great shade of purple.

“And I’m sure they were more than satisfied.” Clint hustles her down the stairs. “So what’s the plan?”

“Prospect Park.” Natasha loops her arm through James’. He looks kind of startled, like he was expecting to be the extra to Clint and Natasha's day out. “Maybe Prospect Park Zoo.”

“We’re going to the zoo?” he asks.

Clint and Natasha talked about this a couple of days ago. They’d decided that it would probably help James for them to do something sort of silly and low pressure. Equally though, they knew that just coming out and saying that would probably make James feel like he was being coddled. Going to the zoo was the perfect answer, because Clint fucking loves the zoo. It’s easy to pretend that it’s for _his_ benefit because, to be completely honest, it absolutely is.

“Hell yes. I want to say hello to the otters.”

James stares at him like he’s lost his mind.

“You absolutely can’t say that otters aren’t the cutest things ever.”

They go out of the actual exit for the building, instead of through the bar, which Clint suddenly realises James can’t have done very often. James has always come up through the bar. Luke always gives Clint pointed looks about that, because he thinks it’s unprofessional. Clint thinks Luke will loosen up when he goes back to getting laid on the regular, which, now that the baby has actually arrived, will probably be only a year and a half away instead of two.

Which reminds him. He sends a text off to Luke, asking after Jess and their new baby girl. He gets a photo back of Luke and Jess looking tired but happy, with the little one, face scrunched up in sleep, lying on Luke’s enormous chest. _She’s called Danielle and she’s amazing_ the accompanying text says. Clint’s so happy for them.

The weather has cleared up a little, sunlight breaking through patchy clouds. It’s not _hot_ , but it’s warm enough, though James still has his leather jacket on. Not that Clint’s complaining; James in leather is one of the best things he can think of and James looks more relaxed than he has since Clint came down this morning, so everything’s good.

Natasha takes it upon herself to act as tour guide, which Clint points out is sort of silly considering she doesn’t live around here. Which of course leads to James asking _why_ Natasha doesn’t live with Clint.

“Hook ups are more difficult if you live with another person.”

Pragmatic. Also true. It’s the same reason they’ve both always used. It sits slightly less well with Clint this time round though, but he examines that thought from all angles and decides it’s a stupid one so disregards it. Clint doesn’t own Natasha.

“Where do you live then?” James asks as they enter the park, after stopping off for coffee at one of Clint’s favourite little artisan places. Both James and Natasha have decided it’s too hot for jackets after all, so there’s more skin on show than before and Clint is completely content.

“Hell’s Kitchen. To be honest, I should probably move.”

Matt also still lives in Hell’s Kitchen, Clint knows. But it’s really close to Shield, which is why she hasn’t moved yet.

“It’s close to Shield, though,” James points out, echoing Clint’s thoughts. “Closer than Queens is to SI, that’s for sure.”

An idea drifts across Clint’s brain, its corners catching. It’s… it’s a good idea. It’s – Clint’s brain is suddenly a whirlwind, trying to figure it all out; problem solving. He’s so distracted that he catches his foot on nothing and stumbles. It’s the jolt he needs to reassess. It’s still there, the idea, but he grasps the corners, folds it up small. Files it away under ‘good but really not yet fucking hell’.

“You okay?” Natasha asks.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbles distractedly, before actively reigning in his thoughts. “Sorry. Hey! Otters!”

They’ve arrived at the entrance of the zoo and Clint drags them to the ticket desk – literally drags, because Clint is a child in the face of otters – paying for three tickets despite both James’ and Natasha's protests. He then continues to drag them around all the pens, making up names and doing voices – the porcupine is old Jewish New Yoik, the llama horrible mangled Spanish he immediately apologises for – and every time Natasha laughs Clint wants to burst he’s so happy.

He kisses her, right in front of the sea lions. She looks so bright and joyful and he can’t help himself. Beside her, James smiles like this is what he wanted so Clint has to lean over and kiss him too.

James looks suddenly alarmed, glancing around like people are going to call him out, and Clint mutters, “Sorry,” because he doesn’t want to make James feel uncomfortable.

“’S alright,” James mutters, blushing slightly.

“Of course it’s alright,” Natasha says, loud enough for several people to glance in her direction, “Clint is an excellent kisser.”

James turns so red his ears practically glow. An older man, clearly out with his grandson, gives them such a disapproving look that Clint can’t help but burst out laughing and suddenly they’re those people from terrible sitcoms; grown adults cackling as they race through a zoo, scandalising old people as they holler about the giraffe coming to get them.  _Run for your lives!_

They only don’t get thrown out because they were heading for the exit anyway.

It’s unseasonably warm, not something Clint would have expected when he woke up this morning. The overcast skies haven’t lifted, but it’s close and muggy as if a storm is on the way. Not really the weather for lounging in parks, but not really weather for exploring Brooklyn either; Clint feels like he’s sticking to everything. An unconscious compromise is reached and they walk through the wood until they find a patch of unoccupied grass, Natasha flopping down first and dragging James to lie with her, sprawled under a tree. Clint follows, half tripping over her feet before collapsing to sit against the tree trunk. Natasha laughs, out of breath from running, and sits up again to lean against his side.

“You’re ridiculous,” she says, as if she’s continuing a conversation that had just dropped off. Clint’s not sure who she’s talking to, him or James. Probably him though, on balance.

James has stayed lying on the grass, putting distance between the him and Natasha as if to appear more proper or something, and Natasha is clearly having none of it because she leans over, tugging at his arms and shoulders until he’s lying at right angles to them, his head pillowed on her thigh. She sinks her fingers into the longer hair on the crown of his head, ostensibly to card through it but more likely to pre-empt any ideas of moving away and, after a few token protests, he lets it be, relaxing into her hold. Clint watches them for a moment and plunges straight back into being ridiculously content.

“I fucking love otters,” Clint says out of the blue. He can’t stop smiling and, anyway, he feels it’s worth restating.

James laughs and Natasha mumbles, “I know you do,” into his shoulder. Clint grins at them both.

He tips his head back to rest against the tree trunk. He’s got no idea what kind of tree it is, but its leaves are silhouetted against the strangely bright, grey sky. There’s almost no breeze to speak of and the air feels thick, as if it’s pressing insistently against his skin, begging him to take notice. If this was Iowa, he’d predict a thunderstorm with about ninety-five per cent certainty, but it’s New York so this could mean absolutely fucking anything. New York has days like this sometimes, like it’s not sure what it’s doing. Natasha once said it’s British weather, like the city is remembering ages past. Clint’s never been to the UK, has never been outside of the US, but he’s happy to take her word for it. There has to be a reason Brits are forever talking about the weather.

They stay under the tree for ages, not really doing anything; sometimes talking, sometimes not. There’s about twenty minutes where he’s pretty sure James falls asleep next to Natasha, having moved off her thigh – probably because resting your head in someone’s lap for long periods of time is actually pretty painful. Another thing Clint knows from experience.

In fact, the most exciting thing to happen all afternoon is the hilarious _gimme now_ expression on James’ face when, from behind the trees and towards the zoo, they hear the sound of an ice cream truck.

“Oh my God, I need one,” he says, all almost-fake intensity and focus, sitting up so quickly he startles Natasha.

He scrambles to his feet, patting his pockets to check for his wallet and looking over to where Clint and Natasha are still sat on the grass looking probably rather baffled. But hey, Clint has very strong feelings about otters, he can’t judge. Right?

“Either of you got allergies or anything?” he asks, looking like he’s itching to just _run over there_ he wants ice cream so bad.

“Nah,” Clint replies, shrugging half-heartedly. He’s got no strong opinions on ice cream and definitely no allergies to speak of, which is probably a good thing considering how often he eats stuff he just finds lying around.

James turns on his heel and all but power walks in the direction of the godawful ice cream truck jingle.

“Make mine a sorbet!” Natasha calls after him. And then she yells, “ _Sorbet_!” like she’s Kirk in _Wrath of Khan_ and Clint bursts out laughing.

James just salutes and disappears into the trees, which makes Clint laugh harder.

“You’re in a good mood today,” Natasha says, nudging him with her shoulder.

Clint shrugs again and moves to lie down. “Today is a good day,” he says, lacing his fingers behind his head.

Natasha smiles at him, her eyes soft and fond, and shuffles until she can lie down with her head on Clint’s shoulder.

“You asked James yet?”

“Asked him what?”

“Your thing.” And yeah, that totally clears things up, Nat, thanks.

“What thing?”

“You know,” she waves her hand vaguely, “feeling disingenuous starting a relationship, blah blah blah.”

Oh, that thing. Clint’s good mood sours, but only a little.

“And when would I have done that?” Clint shoots back, arching an eyebrow in a pale imitation of Natasha's most judging expression. “You’ve been here the entire time.”

“And that means you can’t ask?”

“That means you know I haven’t, Jesus.”

“It’s important, Clint.” She shifts until she can lay her hand on his chest while curling into his side, proper girlfriend style. Something in Clint’s chest lurches. This feels… this feels like something important, this here – Natasha curled into his side on a too-muggy day in Prospect Park while their maybe-triad partner runs off to get ice cream – than any previous point in their… relationship.

“I know it’s important,” he replies, but he’s not too sure what he’s referring to anymore; James or them, here, now.

Natasha tucks her arm around his waist and snuggles closer. “We’ll be okay.”

“But – ” and then he stops, because he’s not sure what was supposed to follow that. It’s there, in his brain, but it’s foggy; not substantial enough in shape for him to look at it properly, to articulate.

“What?”

“I’m… not sure.” He frowns at the sky. “I’ll let you know when I work it out.”

“Okay,” she replies, accepting. “Whenever is fine.”

She shifts again, pressing her cheek into his shoulder, then his collar bone, his pec, and back again.

“Urgh,” she says, still moving, “it’s so fucking _sticky_. I feel like I’m going to sweat through all my clothes and then to melt into you.”

“You’re just chock full of charm, aren’t you?” Clint says and Natasha huffs.

“It’s horrible! Doesn’t it bother you?”

“Bet you there’s a thunderstorm before the end of the day.”

“That isn’t even a proper answer.”

“Ten dollars.”

Natasha sits up just far enough to give him a calculating look. It’s pretty early in the year for thunderstorms, so it’s not entirely unreasonable. On the other hand, those ten dollars are totally Clint’s.

“You’re on, Hufflepuff.”

“Ice cream!”

James has a surprisingly loud voice. Or maybe it’s not that surprising; he was in the army after all. Movies say there’s a lot of yelling in the army.

Clint sits up just in time to see James punch the air, ice cream in hand, like some shitty version of John Bender. He looks ridiculous; one hand is clutching what was clearly his own ice cream, which is almost entirely gone already, and the other is carefully holding two others in such a way that prevents them from smushing together. Unfortunately this hasn’t prevented them from melting all down his hand. Clint can see it dripping over his tattoo and off his elbow.

“Lemon sorbet for the lady,” James says with a mock courtly bow as soon as he reaches them, holding the cone out to Natasha. “And espresso chocolate chip ice cream for the gentleman.”

He hands Clint his cone, his fingers all sticky. A good third of each ice cream seems to be coating James’ hand and arm.

“Let me help you with that,” Clint says, taking his ice cream and then licking a stripe up James’ arm. The lemon isn’t _amazing_ with the coffee and chocolate, but Clint’ll eat the lot if he can eat it off James.

Natasha lets out an incredulous giggle, lips messy with lemon sorbet.

“Oh my God, what the fuck!”

James laughs and shies away, a blush sitting high on his cheeks. Clint grins and makes to try again, but James dodges him and Clint sees his eyes skitter around them, as if checking for witnesses.

“Behave,” Natasha admonishes, hitting him upside the head with her free hand, “and eat your ice cream before it melts completely.”

Clint pouts but does as she suggests and holy crap espresso choc-chip is good.

James stares at him for a moment before cutting his gaze away and shoving the rest of his own cone – strawberry? Raspberry? – in his mouth. There’s probably just a little too much left for it to be entirely comfortable, but James persists, his expression crumpling as he gets momentary brain freeze. And then, because he’s awful and clearly has no idea what he’s doing to Clint, he begins to lick ice cream off his other hand and arm, chasing sticky rivulets around tattooed skin with a mouth that’s entirely too red for Clint to deal with.

It makes Clint stupid. He wants to put his mouth back on James. He wants to chase lemon and coffee trails over his tattoo and suck bruises on the inside of his elbow.

He wants to know where he stands.

Clint’s halfway through opening his mouth when, out of the corner of his eye, he sees Natasha's hands move.

 _If you ask him now,_ she signs in deliberate motions _, I will hurt you_.

Clint knows his expression must be caught somewhere between confused, indignant, and belligerent.

 _Think about it_ , she signs, strong emphasis on ‘think’, and her expression says she’ll wait to make sure he reaches the same conclusion that she’s reached.

James is oblivious to their silent conversation, continuing to lick up and down his own arm like a child. It shouldn’t be as much of a turn on as it is, but then there’s something so unselfconscious about it that Clint was bound to find it attractive. Of course James is attractive when he’s actively trying – he’s built like at least seven of Clint’s dirtiest fantasies – but it’s that unconscious grace that really gets Clint. Like when Natasha's reading, curled up in a chair, or when she’s frowning down at her phone, dealing with god-knows-what like a pro. Clint likes people who are comfortable around him. He likes _making_ people comfortable around him.

“Stop that,” Natasha says to James, throwing the bottle of hand sanitizer she keeps in her bag at him. “We’re in public and I swear your mouth is R rated _at the very least_.”

James grins at her, cocky as anything, but he also picks up the hand sanitizer.

And that’s it, isn’t it? It would make James uncomfortable, to bring this up here, in a park where anyone could overhear. Watching him relax around the two of them, watching him relax with them when they’re out in public, has made Clint so happy to watch. But just because James is _more_ relaxed and comfortable, doesn’t mean he’s even close to Clint’s level of overshare-in-public.

 _There we go_ , Natasha signs, having clearly seen the realisation steal over Clint’s face.

_Yes, yes. I bow to your superior social skills._

_As you should, you animal._ But she’s smiling as she signs.

A drop of water hits Clint on his cheek and he jerks in surprise. He looks out over the park and then up at the threatening skies massing behind the Manhattan skyscrapers just about visible to the north.

“Shit.”

“What?” Natasha asks, and James gives him a questioning look.

“You’re about to owe me ten dollars,” Clint replies, pointing at the cloud bank. It’s an angry, bruised grey, alarmingly dark after the strange brightness of the sky above which, he notes after a quick glance, is no longer as bright as it had been. He feels another splash of rain, this time on the back of his hand.

“We’re about to get very wet.”

James grins. “That’s what she said.”

Natasha takes a brief moment out from hastily shoving her feet back into her boots to smack James on the arm. “You’re the fucking worst.”

James shrugs, unrepentant, as they start towards the closest park exit, not quite power walking, but not a million miles away from it either.


	2. Chapter 2

The storm breaks when they’re only two blocks from Clint’s place. It’s so sudden that it feels a little like someone just turned on a shower. Natasha shrieks and breaks into a run, clamping her bag to her side in an effort to keep the contents dry and throwing up a hand like it’ll save her hair. Clint throws up his hands and yells an exasperated, “Oh, come _on,_ ” to the street at large while James – James stops dead in the street, tilting his head back and grinning into the rain before _whooping_ and breaking into uncontrolled laughter.

Clint shakes his head, bemused. It’s only been about two seconds and he’s already wet enough that standing around isn’t going to make much difference, so he just watches as James turns slowly on the spot; arms out, laughing with his head thrown back, his leather jacket so slick it’s shiny.

“C’mon,” James calls, loud enough to be heard over the sound of the rain pounding the sidewalk. He shimmies over, his hair a tangle on his forehead, his eyelashes clumped with water, and grabs Clint’s hand, pulling him until they’re both practically sprinting down the street after Natasha.

Suddenly Clint feels like a kid; feels twelve years old, escaping from under the angry gaze of his father to run through cornfields in the rain with Barney. It’s the same euphoric, giddy happiness; wild and unencumbered, like he’s escaping something, though he can’t really think right now what that might be.

Unless it’s not him who’s escaping something.

They crash into Natasha's back – who gave up on running as it clearly wouldn’t save her from being soaked to the bone – and James wraps them both in an aggressive hug, pressing wet cloth to wet cloth. Clint can feel them both through his t-shirt, which is so wet it’s sticking to his chest. He’s laughing quietly to himself, still giddy and euphoric and suddenly caught on the way the material of Natasha's shirt clings to the tops of her breasts, so he misses whatever moment it takes for James to lose his reservations, to kiss first Natasha and then, after only a very brief blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hesitation, Clint firmly on the mouth.

It definitely wasn’t Clint who was escaping from something.

Natasha sucks in a breath as his and James’ mouths connect, but that’s as much as Clint’s aware of, outside of the slick, cool feeling of James’ lips against his. His hands tighten on the wet leather of James’ jacket, on the soaked cotton of Natasha's shirt, and he only comes back to himself when he feels someone brush against the front of his jeans.

“Fuck,” he breathes out, the sound going straight from his mouth into James’ to be swallowed up by his tongue.

Natasha's sucking bruises under James’ jaw. Or they will be bruises, but right now they’re just bright sparks of almost-pain that Clint can see flickering across James’ face when he pulls far enough away for it to come into focus. She mumbles something into James’ neck – something Clint’s shitty ears don’t catch. Or maybe it was Russian, it’s not like he can tell either way – and something hungry flits across James’ face, a blush following right on its heels.

“Home,” Natasha grinds out, pushing up on tiptoes to press a harsh kiss directly to Clint’s mouth. “Right the fuck now, boys.”

They’re about two blocks out and it’s raining so hard now that everything is the same washed out grey. Clint is getting cold, his jeans wet and heavy against his crotch in a way that isn’t remotely comfortable. But at least his jeans are loose, which is more than can be said about James’ or Natasha's. Not that either of them look all that bothered.

They’re a little more careful as they approach the bar. There are a few shops in this area and, seeing as Clint makes a point of knowing practically everyone close by, discretion is important if he wants to save James the difficulty involved in everyone knowing their business, even if the rain is hard enough to keep away all but the most intrepid. Natasha's making it difficult though, pushing them in turn against low walls and available bus stops to kiss them, slick and cool.

Jesus Christ, but he fucking loves this woman.

They burst into the entryway, a whirlwind of wet clothes and squeaking rubber soles, to stand dripping and expectant on the tiles. A distant part of Clint’s brain is pleased none of the building’s small children are around to see the feral look in Natasha's eyes, the hunger on James’ face, the way Clint practically buzzes with want.

They should be illegal, really. Too hot, hot damn.

“What are you waiting for?”

Natasha's voice is about two octaves lower than usual, a husky rasp that makes Clint shiver in a way entirely unrelated to the cold. But she’s not looking at him. Her eyes are fixed on James, whose face is steadily getting redder and redder.

Natasha says something in Russian and tips her chin up, the challenge clear, and James eyes flick between her and Clint like he doesn’t know where to look, what to think.

James says something – something that looks like “I don’t – ” – but Clint can’t hear him, his hearing aids choosing _this moment_ to short out due to the heavy rain. The world flicks between tinny sound and buzzy silence. Then the volume cuts out completely.

Shit. They better not be broken.

 _My ears_ , he signs, and he sees Natasha catch the movement. _Wet_.

She nods in acknowledgement and then smirks as her eyes drift over his clinging shirt.

“You’ve got five minutes,” it looks like she says to James. And then something that looks a lot like, “Make good choices.”

Natasha grabs Clint around the neck, running her hands through his wet hair and tugging him down, kissing him like she wants to take over. He doesn’t even notice her taking out his aids, he’s so focussed on her mouth. In fact, he only notices when the quality of the silence changes; from the weirdly electrical humming almost-silence of busted hearing aids to the warped underwater almost-silence that is Clint’s life without his aids. He’s not completely deaf. If people are close by he can make them out if it’s quiet, but it’s not pleasant. Natasha’s close enough for him to hear her breathing and the mumbled expletives and obscenities that fall from her mouth almost unconsciously, but when she turns in response to something James must have said Clint is none the wiser as to what it could be.

Not that he minds. Natasha's hand has worked its way under his wet shirt, fingernails scratching hot lines down his abs, and he’s having trouble focussing on anything else.

“C’mon,” Natasha says, loud enough for him to catch her words. “Upstairs. And then we can…” and that’s as far as Clint makes out, though he’s pretty sure the sentence ended with something along the lines of ‘we can get your spare ears so you can hear James beg’. Or at least that’s what Clint’s choosing to believe she said.

Natasha pushes him up the stairs with her closed fist against his lower back, probably holding his aids, and when he looks over his shoulder as he stumbles inelegantly up the stairs, he can see that her other hand is clamped tight around James’ wrist. James, who looks equal parts lust-drunk and overwhelmed, as if this wasn’t what he expected to happen after _kissing them in public_.

He’ll learn soon enough.

Clint fumbles with the lock on his front door, his mind too preoccupied with what’s about to happen to pay much attention to his keys, and as soon as they’re inside Natasha shoves his hearing aids into his hands.

 _Be quick,_ she signs. And then, _These jeans will take a while to get off_.

Clint is so glad he doesn’t wear skinny jeans. Like, he _has_ and his ass looks fantastic in them, but seriously, they’re such a pain.

Clint hurries through sorting out his aids; removing the batteries, dumping them in the dry box, getting his replacements from the downstairs bathroom, and all the while keeping half an eye on James and Natasha struggling, in a spectacularly incompetent fashion, to get out of their jeans.

“You look fucking ridiculous,” he says, because they do and it should be voiced.

By this point James has got his boots off and Natasha has managed to peel herself out of her jeans and is busy trying to pull James’ past his knees. And James is laughing almost uncontrollably, trying in vain to remain on the couch rather than get tugged straight off onto the floor.

It’s really not going very well.

Clint studies them for a moment. Now that he has his ears back in he can hear James’ laugh and the angry Russian obscenities Natasha is muttering under her breath, and the entire situation makes him so happy his face almost hurts from smiling. Jesus, but these two. He fucking loves Natasha, And James… well, James is so chock full of potential that it makes Clint dizzy.

Yeah, he might not fall for James but he’s damned if he’s gonna let him go.

“Stop standing there and _help_ , you fucker,” Natasha growls and Clint lets out a delighted laugh before kicking off his shoes and tugging off his shirt.

“Not like _that_ , you idiot.”

“Hey, you want my help, you’re gonna get it my way,” he replies as he strips off his jeans and boxers to leave them in a wet pile in the middle of the floor. He’s more than half way to hard and the release of pressure from removing his jeans is _heavenly_. “And it’s not my fault you both wear dumb clothes to get wet in.”

“You weren’t complaining this morning,” James points out, smirking at Clint from where he’s hanging half off the couch.

“It wasn’t _raining_ this morning.”

He’s stood over James now – looming, it feels like – and James looks up, up, up the length of him, his gaze so intense Clint can practically _feel_ it, like warm hands on his skin. It’s making his now-totally-interested dick twitch and that, plus the look in James’ eyes as their eyes meet, is enough to make Clint forget what he’s doing, just for a moment.

“Jesus, Barton,” James breathes out. Clint smirks at him and crouches down, carefully wrapping his hands around his knee to gently peel the heavy denim away from where it’s caught on the meat of his calf. And then, without touching him anywhere else, he does the same with the other leg, until there’s a pile of wet denim at James’ feet and a noticeable tent in James’ boxers.

“You like that?” Clint teases, running one finger up the inside of his thigh. There are red marks circling just below his knees and Clint can practically _feel_ how much Natasha wants to get her mouth on them.

“Clint…”

“Nuh-huh,” he tuts, removing his hand and standing up. “You’re not done getting undressed.”

James whines in the back of his throat, the sound going straight to Clint’s dick, and reaches up to pull his t-shirt off, but Natasha's low, hoarse, “No,” stops him midway through the movement. He tenses briefly and then relaxes so completely it’s like someone flipped a switch.

Natasha's voice makes Clint shiver slightly. He turns to face her.

“No,” she says again. “Clint. Undress him.”

She’s taken Clint and James’ brief distraction to finish undressing – though not completely – and is now stood on the bottom step leading up to his bedroom, her hair in wild damp curls, wearing just her pretty green lace panties and a not-at-all matching black bra. One of those bras with about seventeen more straps and strings than necessary. One of those bras that somehow make her breasts look larger than they are. It’s not a seduction outfit, she’s not trying to titillate or impress, but she’s standing like she expects to be listened to, her chin tipped up and her gaze commanding.

No Rock Paper Scissors needed here. Today, now, Slytherin is in charge.

Natasha holds his gaze for a moment before her eyes slip away to find James. She says something in Russian to him and he blushes but shakes his head, and what follows is clearly a brief interrogation, gentle but insistent. Clint can’t follow at all, but it leads to James relaxing, excess tension Clint wasn’t even aware he was carrying melting off him until he’s practically boneless on the couch.

 _What…?_ Clint signs to Natasha, his face questioning.

 _Later_ , she replies. And then, “Go on Clint,” out loud, gesturing at James.

Clint stares at her a moment longer, drinking in her curves and shadows, before disregarding what she’s said entirely and instead walking over to kiss her hard on the mouth.

“You’re the worst,” she mutters into the kiss, digging her nails into his shoulder and causing the most delicious pinpricks of pain to prickle under his skin.

“I know.”

This works because Natasha understands that he’s doing this because he wants to and not because she says so.

“Get moving, Barton.”

She digs her nails in one last time, her other hand coming up to trail far too lightly across the bottom of his stomach. Not close enough to actually touch his cock, but close enough to make him wish she had. Her teeth sink into his bottom lip and then she _pushes_ , both palms flat against his pecs, just hard enough to make him stumble back.

He grins at her, his mouth feeling tender, and shoots off a sloppy salute before turning back towards James –

Who has pulled himself back onto the couch, lying back in a lazy sprawl that would make professional models weep in envy. He’s loose-limbed and relaxed, his lips bitten red and his eyes wide and dark, carefully following every move Clint makes as he approaches. He looks ready to tip over into something soft and pliant and _other_ , into that place that people have, in the past, wanted Clint to go and where he’s never quite managed to reach.

Clint is very _present_ during sex, always has been. And that’s not to say that James has checked out, or anything as worrying-sounding as that, but he’s able to let go in a way that Clint can’t. In a way Natasha can’t really either. It’s not _better_ and Clint’s not envious or anything like that, it’s just different, and Clint finds it fascinating to watch.

Clint almost always knows what’s happening; knows where people are and what he’s doing. He’s _switched on_ , electrified, so aware of his entire body. To other people it can sound exhausting but for Clint it heightens everything, makes everything better, even when he’s not in charge. _Especially_ when he’s not in charge.

He gets the impression that for James it’s almost the complete opposite. That he lets go, lets his awareness float off somewhere until all he’s paying attention to is those few small things that are immediately important. Clint guesses it’s a form of subspace – or maybe it _is_ subspace – but as BDSM isn’t something Clint’s even remotely interested in he’s never bothered to find out properly.

All Clint knows for sure is that James looks fucking spectacular when it happens, pliant and gorgeous, and it makes Clint want to be that immediately important thing, all focus on him.

It’s an uncomfortably possessive thought, for someone who dislikes possessiveness. But then it feels more like _being possessed_ than the other way around. Like when Natasha gives him pet names or brings him pretty things.

“Hey,” he says quietly, leaning over where James is sprawled on the couch to press a thumb against his bottom lip. God, but his mouth is gorgeous.

James opens his mouth as if to reply – and Clint fights not to just slip his thumb inside – but all that comes out is the little wet clicking sound of lips parting. There’s a flush high on his cheeks and his pupils are enormous.

“You wanna try that again?” he asks with a small smirk and this time James manages to breathe out a, “Hey.”

“C’mon, we’re gonna put a show on for Tasha,” Clint says softly, starting to move far enough away to lift James off the couch, but he’s stopped by James cupping his face, his thumb brushing the corner of his mouth in return.

“You’re so – ” James’ gaze sweeps the room, searching out Natasha. He lets out a shuddery breath. “Fucking beautiful. I can’t – ”

It’s dark in the apartment, the heavy rain fooling everyone into thinking it’s later than it is, but Clint hadn’t really noticed because, well, why the fuck would he be paying attention to the light when he has Natasha and James? He notices now because suddenly the light changes, becomes the soft yellow-orange glow that indicates that the lamp and fairy lights in his room have been switched on. James flinches minutely and they both turn to look up at the mezzanine.

“C’mon boys,” Natasha says, quiet but carrying easily from where she’s leaning against the railing. The light makes her glow, hits her from all angles, makes her look otherworldly and beautiful in a way Clint can never really get to grips with.

Natasha Romanov thinks _he’s_ worth sticking around for. Jesus Christ.

Clint turns and coaxes James off the couch, hauling him up when he legs refuse to cooperate and helping him to stand facing Natasha, albeit swaying slightly.

“Look at her,” he says, crowding behind James. “Keep your eyes on her.”

Clint places a kiss to the juncture between James’ neck and shoulder, on the very edge of his collar, and then sweeps his hands up his chest, over his t-shirt. If Natasha wants a show he’ll give her one, as good as he can manage.

He repeats the movement, catching one of James’ nipples this time, making James gasp and tip his head back.

“Nuh-uh, eyes up,” he reprimands. “Look at Tash.”

James does and Clint kisses his shoulder in praise.

Clint desperately, _desperately_ wants to push against James’ ass, grind down. The hem of his t-shirt keeps catching Clint’s dick as he moves and it’s _maddening_ , but no. Not now. Not yet. Instead he sweeps his hands up again, under James’ t-shirt this time, revealing James’ abs to Natasha and hopefully making her gasp, though if she does, his ears don’t pick it up. But the light changes briefly; a flicker that implies she shifts, momentarily blocking out some of the fairy lights that are wrapped around the railing. It makes Clint grin into James’ shoulder.

He sweeps his hands down again, James abs disappearing from view, and he can _feel_ Natasha's disappointment.

Clint palms James roughly through his boxers, the change of pace apparently so unexpected that James mutters a harsh, “Fuck,” and his knees momentarily give out. Clint catches him around the waist just in time.

The head of James’ cock is poking out of his waistband, red and wet and faintly ridiculous in that way Clint always finds erections. They’re just… inherently funny, Clint finds. Don’t get him wrong, he fucking loves dicks, but you can’t have someone walking towards you with a hard-on and not find the way it bobs at least a little funny. Not that Clint’s told anyone but Kate and Natasha that. Most guys don’t take kindly to you laughing at their dick.

It’s a little funny right now, but mostly it’s unspeakable hot.

Clint tugs James’ boxers down until the waistband is caught under his balls and glances up at Natasha –

 – whose mouth is bitten red and who looks about two seconds away from charging back down the stairs and making Clint _do something._

 _You are a_ fucking _tease_ , she signs, the ‘fucking’ large and emphatic and the lighting making her hand movements look like dancing.

Clint just grins and lifts up James’ shirt again.

_I hate you._

Clint’s not taking his hands off James to sign back a reply, so he just shakes his head at her, grinning.

Then he brushes across one of James nipples again, making him moan.

“Jesus Christ,” James mumbles, “fucking do something, you complete bastard.”

He could drag it out more, but to be honest Clint is losing patience. So instead he makes sure James can stand on his own and then swiftly tugs at his boxers, pulling them down and off, kissing the back of James’ thighs as he kneels to let James step out, one foot then the other, before Clint flings them somewhere behind him to be entirely forgotten about.

Clint stands, slowly, deliberately too close so James can feel as much skin as possible; Clint’s nose dragging up between his shoulder blades, his palms skimming his sides, until he’s pressed flush against James’ back, dick pressing incessantly against his ass. It would have been a smooth move – a fancy as fuck way to get James’ t-shirt off in one long, slow slide – but James fucking ruins it by gasping and moaning and scrabbling at Clint’s forearms, trapping his shirt up around his chest. He leans so hard against Clint that there’s nowhere he can go, nothing he can do. Not that he wants to because James’ left hand has come up, bicep straining, to curl around Clint’s neck, James mumbling and – _fuck_ – begging and trying to kiss him and _Christ_ , all Clint wants to do is grind against him until he comes.

Clint lets out a broken, choked off moan, and then, with what feels like the last of his brain power, manages to get out, “No, c’mon James. _James_. Bucky. Buck. T-shirt. C’mon.”

James gasps and his hand tightens around Clint’s neck.

“Don’t come,” Clint warns, low even though _yes_ , he wants to see that. James getting off on skin and hot breath and Tasha watching like she owns them both.

Distantly, he wonders how James managed to fall so far so fast. If there was something, something tight and controlled, that James just let go of somewhere between the door and the couch.

“Stairs.”

Clint puts action to the word and directs James up the steps, their progress shambling and stilted and inelegant as fuck, because James is loose-limbed and feels like he’s burning under Clint’s hands. It makes him crazy, like all he wants to do is sink into him so far that he disappears. _Fuck_. James is like really fucking expensive wine; intoxicating.

And then they get to his bedroom and Clint’s fevered gaze lands on Natasha and he thinks, _shit, intoxicating doesn’t even come close._

Natasha looks primal, elemental. Like the storm outside snuck in somehow, through the cracked open window or a split in the plaster, and inched its way under her skin until she was filled up with electricity, with violence and deafening light. He can see how her knuckles are white, how only moments before she was gripping the railing so tightly that it’s left imprints across her palms. He swears he can smell her, though he probably can’t. It’s probably sense memory and longing and want.

“You’re gonna pay for that,” she says, low and dangerous, and Clint doesn’t have to ask for what because Natasha hates to be teased. She hates to be teased and Clint loves doing it anyway. Because then he has to pay for it and, _oh_ , it makes him sing.

“On the bed.”

James stumbles, almost falls, unable to look away from Natasha for even a moment. Not that Clint can judge because he can’t either.

“Against the pillows, Barton. Barnes, sit between his legs.”

She turns as they move, always facing them, and Clint does exactly what she says this time because somewhere between the apartment proper and the bed, he irrevocably lost any control Natasha had let him keep.

James settles against him, heavy and insistent against his dick, solid against his chest, and Clint gasps. James isn’t trying anything, maybe because he’s gone far enough under that it hasn’t occurred to him to do anything he hasn’t been told to do, but his skin is fever slick, burning, and he sits low enough that his hair is an insistent scratch against Clint’s nipples. It’s maddening. Clint whispers something, some praise or endearments, he’s not even sure, into the crown of James’ head and wraps his right arm across his chest, palm flat just under his collarbones. James’ breath hitches in response and he threads the fingers of their left hands together, his right coming up to curl around Clint’s elbow.

And then they wait, for whatever it is Natasha wants.

She’s stood at the foot of the bed now, still in her bra and panties, and with a jolt Clint realises that no one’s touched her. No one tonight has put their hands on her since she came up the stairs, _not even herself_ , and that’s so, so wrong that his thighs tense in anticipation of moving and rectifying that wrong. But Natasha stills him with a look and then, with the easy grace of someone who knows she has nothing to prove, hooks her thumbs into her panties and pulls them off in one swift move.

James starts swearing and begging almost immediately. A litany of, “Fuck, please, please,” under his breath that makes Clint’s dick, if possible, _even harder_. Oh God, he’s gonna die from this.

“Please what, James?” Natasha asks as she – almost nonchalantly – removes her bra.

“Let me – ” He gasps as Clint thumbs a nipple. “Touch you. Make you…” but then he trails off because Natasha puts a knee on the bed and this insides of her thighs are fucking _slick_ and no one can think when they see something like that. _No one_.

“Make me what, James?”

Natasha's control is absolute and iron clad and the most beautiful thing about her right now.

James doesn’t answer.

“Make me _what_ , James?”

“ Feel good.” And then so soft Clint almost misses it, “Want me.”

 _Let me make you want me_.

Clint’s gaze snaps to Natasha's and he knows they’re both thinking the same thing. _We should have talked about this. Why didn’t we talk about this?_

But they can’t do it now. James is too far gone.

Fuck.

“Hey,” Natasha says, so gentle it almost bowls Clint over. “Hey, give me your hand.”

The direct command is good for James and he holds out his free hand without question. Natasha moves up until she’s hovering over him and places his fingers, gently but insistently, against her cunt. Her breath hitches and her thighs tremble, but she’s steady above them both, and Clint aches with how much he loves her. It’s terrifying.

“Feel how much I want you James,” she says, soft and breathy. Her eyes flick to Clint’s and he knows exactly what she wants. He shifts, making James aware all over again of how hard his dick is trapped at James’ back. It’s excruciating and he has to breathe heavily through his nose in an effort not to come. “How much Clint wants you.”

Natasha's eyes are huge.

“We want you, James. So fucking much. You’re… beautiful and wonderful and good.” She gasps as James moves his fingers. “We – ” her eyes flick to Clint’s again and he nods, pressing kisses to James’ shoulder and tightening his arm around his chest “ – talk about you. Hands and mouths and… _imagine if James were here._ ”

They did do this, just three days ago. The memory almost chokes him.

James’ gasps at Natasha's words and his fingers are so tight around Clint’s that Clint’s bones ache.

“Don’t doubt we want you, James.”

Natasha removes James’ fingers from inside her and, as if by magic, a condom appears in her hand. James’ left hand tightens around Clint’s in anticipation and the small part of Clint’s brain that _isn’t_ obsessively occupied with trying not to come – with the feeling of James pressed against him, with Natasha looking conquering and lightning-bound – wonders where she got it from. If the bed is just covered in them and he hadn’t noticed, or if she’d gone and hidden condoms under all the pillows so they wouldn’t have to slow down.

But he lets it go almost immediately. Who cares, really? There are more interesting things to think about.

Without breaking eye contact with James, Natasha curls her hand around his dick and Clint can guess where this is going. James lets out a broken sounding keen, his chest heaving, his eyes screwed tight shut, and Clint just has to kiss him. So he brings up his hand, cups his jaw, and turns his head. James’ mouth is hot and wet and, despite the awkward angle, Clint thinks he could happily kiss James until he came. But Natasha's voice interrupts, her sharp, “Barton,” pulling him from his spit-slicked nirvana.

“Hands on the bed.”

Clint groans.

“ _Now,_ Clint.”

With infinite regret, Clint untangles his left hand from James’, unwraps his right from around James’ chest, and tangles his hands in the rumpled sheets, because anything else would have him reaching out again. James feels heavier now, slumped across him panting heavily and, because Natasha always know what she’s doing, losing Clint’s support means that he also slides a little further down, pushing more insistently against Clint’s dick. Fuck, but this is going to end him. He’d managed to put it out of his mind for a little while, just how hard he was, how turned on, but Natasha's got him in a way now that means he can’t forget. And he can’t even _touch_.

He whines in the back of his throat.

“Don’t come,” Natasha instructs and then she effortlessly rolls the condom onto James’ dick, places his cockhead against her entrance and, as she lowers herself and James jack-knifes under her, shoves her cunt-wet fingers into James’ open mouth.

James bucks and shudders, pushing so hard against Clint’s trapped cock that Clint has to screw his eyes shut and breath heavily through his nose in an effort not to come. His fingers are holding so tight to the sheets they ache and he can’t – he _can’t_ –

But he does, just about, manage to stave off the overwhelming need to come. Everything goes hazy for a moment and he’s only properly brought back by the sudden pain of James clamping down, _hard_ , on his thigh with his left hand.

Then Clint starts paying attention to what’s actually going on in front of him and very quickly has to start listing wholesale prices for liquors in his head, because it’s the most tedious thing he can think of. Because Jesus _fuck_.

Natasha’s removed her fingers from James’ mouth and his face is screwed up and tipped to the side so his hot, ragged breath spills over Clint’s stomach in uneven bursts. He’s panting and quietly begging in equal parts, a litany of ‘yes’ and ‘please’ and ‘Natasha’ and ‘fuck’ and ‘Clint’ on repeat. His left hand is crushing bruises onto Clint’s thigh and his right hand – his right hand is roaming over all of Natasha that he can reach; her hip, her tits, her stomach, her clit.

And _Natasha_. Holy fuck Natasha.

Her hair is a riot of curls, only half dried from the rain before it clumped with sweat again. Her lips are bitten red, spit-slick and shiny. She’s sat straight up on James’ lap, back arched, so still that Clint knows – _knows_ – that it’s only iron willpower that’s keeping her from coming. Her breasts are covered in a faint sheen of sweat that is beautifully picked out by the gold glow of the fairy lights, her nipples small and tight, her chest heaving, her brows furrowed and her eyes tight shut until, until –

She breathes out once, hard, through her nose and opens her eyes. She looks down and Clint’s caught in her bottomless gaze – her pupils like starless skies; all-encompassing.

She grinds out something, too low for Clint’s ears to pick up, but then almost spits out, “ _Jesus,_ Barton.”

Clint wonders if he looks as wrecked as he feels; gut-punched, strung out.

For a brief moment Natasha looks wild, too close to the edge, but then she regains her composure, reaching up to pinch and pull at her nipples and rolling her hips; a slow, sinuous move that causes a punched out moan from both James _and_ Clint.

She smirks at that, small and dangerous, and pitches forward to brace her weight on James’ shoulders, pushing him even harder against Clint’s poor neglected cock. Clint chokes back another moan and, in retaliation, because she’s _evil as fuck_ , Natasha leans down and claims James’ mouth like she’s thinking of crawling inside him before rising up and slamming her hips down with all the force she can muster at this angle.

Natasha rides James like he owes her, like she _owns_ him, like she doesn’t care about anything except her own pleasure and Clint knows how that feels; how hot and wet and brutal. James scrabbles at Clint’s thighs before managing to get his feet flat on the bed enough to thrust back up, his hands moving from Clint’s thighs to Natasha's ass in a move that makes her groan in approval.

“Tasha.” Clint’s panting now, so close he’s not sure he can make it. “Tash. _Tasha_.”

They work because she understands that he does this because he wants to and not because she says so, but sometimes what he wants is to do what she says and she knows this too. But this is too much too much too much and he’s not sure he can hold out, not like this, not with James writhing on top of him and Natasha crashing down like breaking waves. The bones of his hands ache, he’s holding onto the covers so hard.

Natasha says something directly into James’ mouth – something low and dirty and possibly Russian –and James cries out, jerking against Clint as he comes. It takes a monumental effort on Clint’s part not to follow him over the edge right there and then, the slick skin of James’ lower back and the soft, almost-hurt noises both he and Natasha are making enough all on their own.

“ _Tasha_ ,” he whines, desperate.

He doesn’t know if it’s him or James that pushes Natasha over the edge, but through his lust-haze he sees her cry out, loud in that way she only is when she’s really turned on, before throwing her head back, jamming her fingers against her clit and coming so hard she soaks James’ lap.

“I can’t – ” Clint says brokenly, just as James breathes out a shattered and emphatic, “ _Fuck_ ,” and goes limp and heavy across Clint’s lap.

“Tasha,” and Clint’s voice is wrecked now, barely above a whisper. “Tasha, _please_.”

Natasha's eyes find his and there’s something elemental and borderline desperate in her gaze that makes Clint’s heart lurch, because it’s so familiar it’s almost like looking in the mirror.

Clint tries shaping the word ‘please’ again, but it dies on his lips.

Tasha just _knows._

Gingerly, and without breaking eye contact, Natasha lifts herself off James, causing a small pained moan from all three of them. Clint can see the tremble in her limbs, and her hands are shaking minutely, but her gaze is steady as she leans down until her lips brush James’ ear and her breath ghosts across the skin of Clint’s stomach.

She says something to James, again in Russian, again not breaking eye contact with Clint. James shakes his head and Natasha clearly insists, because James moves against Clint as if to get up, once again jolting Clint’s aching and oversensitive cock.

“Look at me, Clint.”

He hadn’t even noticed that his gaze had wandered.

She’s closer, leaning over him, and he automatically reaches for her.

“Hands on the bed.”

Her lips are almost touching his now. Her eyes are black pools, the blue of her irises a ring so thin it’s almost as if they’re not there at all.

“Keep looking at me, Clint.”

He’s lost track of where James is. He’s… he’s not sure that’s ever happened before.

“Keep looking.”

He can almost see himself in Natasha's pupils. But, more easily than that, he can see awe and want and joy and a fierce possessiveness that surprisingly doesn’t make him want to claw his skin off.

And love. Terrifying, all-encompassing love.

All of a sudden he feels James’ mouth on his dick, swallowing him down in a swift, smooth move that has him arching into James’ mouth, choking only prevented by James’ surprisingly strong post-orgasm grip on his hips. Clint fights against every instinct to close his eyes, to keep looking at Natasha, just as she’d asked, making an embarrassingly loud, choked off moan. Natasha is hardly touching him, it’s just the skin of her knees brushing his arm as she kneels next to him, leaning over, but she doesn’t have to be touching him. It feels like she’s everywhere, all at once, in all the places he’d thought he’d kept hidden.

And then Natasha says, quiet and commanding, “Come for me, Clint,” and he does, because he can’t not, straight down James’ throat while Natasha swallows his cries.

 

The next thing Clint is aware of is James clinging to his right side while Natasha is wrapped around his left, murmuring praise and reassurance to both of them. Though, looking down at him, Clint isn’t sure James can hear her; he looks almost entirely asleep already.

“Natasha,” Clint says, or tries to at least. It comes out as a hoarse whisper, as if he’s been screaming at the top of his lungs. He hopes he hasn’t been, he has neighbours after all, but it’s not like he’d be able to tell for sure without anyone else letting him know.

He’s had other things holding his attention.

“Hey,” she replies, tilting her head up to look at him from where she’s leaning against his shoulder.

“I – ”

But he doesn’t know what to follow that with. Everything that’s just taken place was so far from what he was expecting when James kissed him on the street. And, fuck, it’s probably only been an hour or so since then. It feels like it should have been more than that; days, maybe. Lifetimes.

“Hey,” Natasha says again, “you’re okay.”

She brushes her fingers underneath his right eye and her fingertips come away wet.

“Fuck,” Clint breathes out. “Am I crying?”

Natasha smiles. “Only a little.”

Clint laughs tiredly.

“I think you’ve broken me,” he says, incredulous.

“Only a little,” she says again. “You’ll be fine.”

Clint looks down at James and he sees Natasha do the same.

“Jesus, he’s fucking stunning.”

James’ mouth is red – bitten red rather than the stretched-and-used red that comes from sucking cock; Clint really didn’t last long enough for that this time – and he looks relaxed and debauched in the best possible way.

“He really, really is,” Natasha agrees, before yawning so wide even Clint can hear her jaw crack.

“We should change the sheets,” she mumbles into his chest.

“I might just kill you if you make me move.”

Natasha mumbles something that might be agreement and scrabbles around with her free hand until she snags the corner of the top sheet, the only thing that didn’t get almost immediately kicked off onto the floor. She flings it haphazardly across the three of them in a rather futile attempt to stave off the chill, before tucking herself back against his side, wrapping her left hand around the lax fingers of James’ right.

“Ugh,” Clint grumbles, half asleep. “I hate being the pillow. My arms are gonna go numb.”

“Shut up and sleep, Hufflepuff.”

 

Clint wakes up a couple of hours later thanks to a combination of outside stimuli that he’d really rather weren’t happening. To wit: he’s cold because Natasha has stolen all the covers, his arm is numb because James is still lying on it, his ears hurt because he’s slept with his hearing aids in, his mouth tastes horrible because he’d fallen asleep without brushing his teeth _again,_ and he really, really needs to piss.

He groans – loudly – and accidentally wakes up James as well.

James is tucked into Clint’s side, the two of them clearly having unconsciously moved closer for warmth as they slept, so Clint is very well placed to see confusion, then surprise, then realisation wash over his face as he figures out where he is and what’s going on. James then does a probably-not-at-all-exaggerated full body shiver and curls tighter into Clint’s side. Clint’s numb right arm protests, loudly.

“Why is it so cold?” James mumbles into Clint’s chest.

“Natasha stole the covers.”

“What a bitch,” comes the reply, completely lacking in heat.

“Uh-huh.” Clint shifts slightly. “Let me up. Gotta piss.”

“Charming.”

“Shut up.”

Clint extracts himself from James with minimal fuss and, man, if there is one complaint about threesomes – or poly relationships, or triads, or whatever the fuck this is gearing up to be – it’s that being in the middle in the morning makes getting out of bed an athletic exercise that Clint is in no way awake enough to manage with grace. He almost falls out of bed. He definitely whacks his knee on the bedframe. And then he almost lands in –

“Uh, James. What the hell, man?”

“What?”

Clint points at the floor where, two inches from where the bin stands, is something that definitely resembles a poorly tied off used condom and _Jesus Christ._

“Holy shit! Fuck. I am so sorry.” James looks embarrassed as hell, red in the face in the most charming way. “I thought – I didn’t. Shit. I’ll – ”

He reaches for it, the most hilarious – but also _appropriate_ – reluctant-slash-disgusted look on his face.

“Fuck, James, _no_. Don’t _touch_ it, Jesus.” Clint disappears into the en suite and comes back with a handful of toilet paper. “Here.”

“Urgh, I can _feel_ it’s cold,” James mumbles as he scoops it up and dumps it in the bin. The two of them then stare at the stain on the carpet.

“I’ll clean that up,” James says after a moment.

“Damn right you will,” Clint replies with a small smile. “It’s your fucking jizz.”

James laughs and lies back on the bed, and it’s only then that Clint properly notices that James is _completely naked_ and also _completely exposed_ thanks to Natasha stealing the sheets. Also, the bed is a fucking disaster zone.

And Clint still really needs to piss.

“Be right back,” he says and disappears into the en suite again.

Clint pisses and then stares at himself in the mirror over the sink. Only a couple of the bites from earlier have come up in bruises and they’re fairly faint ones at that. He looks well-fucked and his hair is a disaster and he’s… just really happy with everything right now. Clint takes out his hearing aids and scrubs his hands over his ears, like it’ll stop them from feeling tacky and awful, and then splashes water over his face before regretfully shoving his ears back in and returning to the bedroom. Only a shower will make that tacky and awful feeling properly go – well, that and putting back in his better and hopefully in no way broken aids that are still down in the drybox – and he’s absolutely planning to drag James with him because fuck Natasha. She stole the sheets.

James has curled up on the bed again, still naked and clearly trying to retain as much heat as possible.

“You can just steal the covers back you know.”

James gives him an arch look before uncurling and sitting up, feet flat on the floor. He scrubs a hand over his face and then looks up at Clint.

“We need to talk, don’t we?”

“We?” Clint wasn’t aware that he and James had things they needed to talk about.

“We.” James waves his hand in an all-encompassing gesture that indicates that the ‘we’ in this instance is all three of them. He arches an eyebrow.

“Oh, that ‘we’.” Clint scratches at the back of his neck. “Then yeah, we do need to talk.”

There’s a brief, awkward silence.

“But first,” Clint says brightly. “We’re going to shower. And Natasha can put the laundry on because that’s what you get when you steal the covers.”

James laughs at that, but has no objections – and Clint is glad because he’d really like to see James all soapy and wet. Instead he just watches with amusement as Clint rounds the bed, grips the sheet covering Natasha tightly in both hands, and then _pulls_.

There’s an unattractive squawk, an undignified flail, and then Natasha is sitting up, her hair a riot of red, with a _very_ pissed off frown gracing her features. James looks utterly delighted.

“So hey, you’re awake!” Clint says, far chirpier than necessary. James starts laughing. “Me and James are gonna go shower and you stole the covers so you’re dealing with that. Hope you slept well!”

“You’re an absolute _bastard_ , Clint Barton,” Natasha snarls in return, throwing a pillow that Clint only just manages to dodge.

“But oh so rakish and charming and fantastic in bed,” he says in return, laughing. Then, before Natasha can throw anything else, he grabs a laughing James by the wrist and hauls him out of bed and into the bathroom, the thunk of the lock timing perfectly with the sound of the other pillow hitting the door.

“If you fuck in there, I’m gonna be pissed!” Natasha yells.

“Jealous!” James yells back. “The word you’re looking for is ‘jealous’!”

Clint can’t help the incredulous laugh that escapes him at that, because he seriously didn’t think James was there yet.

“C’mon you,” James then says, turning from the door to push at Clint’s waist. “Shower. I feel sticky and gross.”

“Woah, hey, hold up.” James frowns at him and Clint just shrugs apologetically and reaches up to remove his hearing aids. “No point in getting both sets wet.”

James instantly looks chagrined. “Sorry,” he mumbles, or maybe says; Clint can’t hear properly any more.

“No worries,” Clint replies, automatically signing as he speaks and, when James looks slightly upset than he can’t follow the sign Clint kisses him in reassurance. He then cocks an eyebrow – badly as usual – and draws James under the spray.

As he’d suspected, James Barnes soapy and wet is a sight to fucking behold. The lines of his tattoo seem sharper, all his muscles fucking _glisten,_ and his eyelashes clump in that way that Clint can’t help but find attractive. Clint might have spent an inordinate amount of time running his sudsy hands over him; his chest and his stomach and _oh god_ his ass.

It’s okay, James is doing the same thing to Clint.

He’s half hard and so is James, but when he wraps his hand loosely around James’ cock and gives him a ‘you wanna?’ look, James just rolls his eyes in amusement and then _bites his ear_. So Clint gives him a retaliatory tug, and James elbows him so he elbows back, and it descends into a very childish tickle fight that has them laughing breathlessly and knocking into the glass and the walls. It only stops when James jerks like he’s heard something and then laughs.

“What?” Clint asks.

He watches his mouth move in reply, but he really doesn’t know James well enough to lip read him yet.

“What?” he repeats, and James looks chagrined all over again.

“I said,” James says, leaning close enough for Clint to hear him, “Natasha says ‘don’t break the fucking shower guys’.”

“It’s _my_ shower!” Clint exclaims indignantly. “I can break it if I want.”

James laughing isn’t a sight Clint’s going to get sick of any time soon.

 

When they finally get out of the shower they find that Natasha has indeed stripped the bed though she hasn’t put new covers on which is… fair enough really. She’s nowhere to be found though, so Clint assumes she’s in the downstairs shower. For a brief moment he considers putting new sheets on the bed before deciding he can’t be bothered and instead digging through his clothes to find sweats for both him and James, throwing the purple robe thing over the mezzanine railing for Natasha.

“Pizza?” he asks James.

“Yeah, sure. And something for that.” James points at the stain on the carpet.

So James cleans the carpet while Clint orders pizzas and Natasha trails the smell of lavender shampoo around the apartment as she gets dressed.

It’s only about seven in the evening and the storm seems to have blown itself out – “Oh, and you owe me ten bucks by the way,” Clint tells Natasha – or at least moved onto some other part of the Eastern Seaboard, leaving weak sunlight to pour through the windows while clouds scud across the sky. Clint kind of wants to go out onto the roof, dust off some lounge chairs, and sit surrounded by the smell of wet concrete and those flowers in pots that Simone looks after for him. He’s aware that would be procrastinating though and if everyone’s on the same page putting this off would just be stupid, especially after what just happened in bed a couple of hours back.

So instead James and Natasha spread out on the couches while Clint takes the faded green wingback for himself, his feet propped up on the coffee table. He’s sort of expecting Natasha to get the ball rolling, but she’s busy stuffing her face with pizza and James sure as hell shouldn’t be left to do it, so it falls to Clint. Which: great, he can be an adult, that’s cool. It’s just a shame he has no idea where to start.

 “So…”

Natasha looks at him in confusion and Clint sighs.

“This is me trying to start The Talk.”

“Oh.” She looks between him and James. “You’re doing great, babe. Go for it.”

“Fuck off.”

Natasha sticks her tongue out at him while James snorts out a laugh.

This hasn’t made it much easier.

“Okay,” Clint says after a moment. “Spoiler alert: I have never done this before, so I’m not sure how this should go. So I’m just going to, I dunno, ramble at you, I guess, about where _I_ am re this whole thing and then… I dunno. You chime in. Or question. Or… whatever. Yeah?”

James looks kind of wary, but more comfortable than Clint was expecting. He nods and sits up a little straighter. Natasha looks… sort of proud. Maybe. Clint looks away from her.

“So. So I guess I’m the… most chill about this? I guess. ‘Cause, like, I’m cool with whatever. There’s. like, kinks and hard limits and stuff that we can go through, but that’s not – that’s not what this is about, really. We can carry on like this forever and I’ll be cool with that. This is the kind of thing I’m comfortable with. Or – that sounds like I’m having protracted triad relationships all the time, which clearly I’m not, but I mean.”

Clint takes a breath and tries to work out what he’s saying here.

“What do you want out of this?”

Natasha's voice is gentle, cutting through the noise that Clint can’t parse in his head, and Clint sends her a grateful glance, because while he knows what he means articulating it was never going to be his strong suit.

“I want you around. All the time.” Natasha smiles at him and sits up, crossing her legs. She knows what he means by that so he doesn’t _have_ to quantify it, but he does anyway. “I mean, have your own life and all that jazz, but I think I want to – ”

“Stake a claim?” Natasha says with a smile.

“Really no.” Possessiveness is so not Clint’s thing and she knows this.

“Make it official?”

Clint hesitates. “Yeah. Yeah I guess. Sort of. Fucking terrifying as that is.”

Natasha grins at him, huge and happy and yes. Yes. He said the right thing there.

“And then,” he turns to James. “You’re kind of – fucking amazing.” James blushes, dark and pleased. “And like, I can already see you’ll be an epic friend and you’re really fun and funny and great in bed and.” He looks back at Natasha. “He’s not like Sam. But he’s also not like you and I guess that’s just proof again that all… relationships are different, but.”

He looks at James again. “Whatever you’re comfortable with, I’m here for.”

James smiles at him, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees. He’s silent for a moment and then he says, “You’re not gonna stop sleeping with other people.”

He says it as a statement, not a question, and something that feels a lot like ice settles in Clint’s stomach.

“I – no. No, I’m not.” That’s a completely different discussion, if James wants that. It’s probably closer to make or break than Clint would like and for the first time in his life he feels slightly embarrassed by the frequency of his hook-ups. “Does – does that bother you?”

James looks down at his hands, hanging between his knees, and then back up at him, then across to Natasha, then back down again. As a sequence of events, it doesn’t fill Clint with confidence.

“So, like, remember last time, when I dropped off your clothes? And I freaked out over the pizza guy?”

Clint nods, wondering where this is going.

“There’s a bunch of things here that other people would strike down as deal breakers. Like, so many. I don’t know anyone in a – what’s even the term? Threesome relationship?”

“Triad is, I think, the most popular term. If it’s completely mutual and there’s three people involved.”

Natasha is so good at this, Clint thinks fondly, looking over at where she’s just casually stuffing her face with pizza. She’s probably researched. She’s probably _made notes_.

“Okay, so: triad,” James continues. “I don’t know anyone in a relationship like that. I knew they _existed_ , but like, in your head – or maybe just my head – it’s a porn thing, yeah? So that. It’s not usual. Then, you two are in a pretty committed relationship. So, in this, I’d be… dating? Two people who are a set. That’s also… not usual. You both sleep with people who aren’t each other – which, great! That’s how I ended up here – but still, not usual. Very often _the_ deal breaker, yeah?”

He spreads his hands helplessly. “I freaked out about the idea of telling my parents. I freaked out about telling _Steve_.” James shrugs. “That’s what bothered me most, having to work it out so I could tell people who aren’t in any way involved. This stuff though,” he waves his hands vaguely, indicating the three of them, “I’m worried about sticking my foot in it, but – it doesn’t _bother_ me, like sometimes I think it should, you know?”

“You don’t think you’d get jealous?” Natasha asks.

“You were very up front about it,” James replies, shrugging. “I’m just constantly stunned you want me around.”

“Okay, that,” Clint says, pointing at James. “That is something we’re gonna talk about.”

“What?”

“You being surprised we want you.”

James opens his mouth as if to respond, but Clint just barrels over him.

“I’m sure that’s a holdover from your thing with your boy Steve, but seriously I am breaking you of that even if I don’t get to sleep with you ever again.”

Natasha gives him a warning look, something along the lines of _don’t come on too strong here_ , but it might be too late for that.

“Seriously,” and Clint says it so vehemently that James looks actually surprised. “You probably don’t remember this, but you know what you said before, when you were out of your mind from Tash teasing you?” And, oh god, everything comes rushing back; James, lust drunk and begging and _Jesus_ that was so fucking hot.

James shakes his head, bemused.

“You said _let me make you want me_.”

James’ eyes flick to Natasha for a moment before returning to Clint, his brow furrowed like he doesn’t understand what’s wrong. For some reason, that makes Clint irrationally pissed.

“Make you want me,” Clint says again. “Like you’d have to try harder. Like you don’t walk into a room and I lose the ability to think properly for a moment. Like you’re not one of the hottest people I’ve ever seen. Jesus, James; you smirk and I’m zero to turned the fuck on in, like, five seconds.”

“Clint,” Natasha says quietly, slightly admonishing. James looks at her like she’s going to explain his outburst, but she just smiles.

“Oh no, I’m with Clint. You’re fucking stunning; funny, smart, and sexy as hell. You don’t have to worry about me not wanting you. Anything you want to try, I’m here for.” She gives him a sly smile. “Even what I suggested earlier. _Especially_ what I suggested earlier.”

James blushes dark and low, his fucking _neck_ flushing, and Clint really needs to know what Natasha's referring to.

“What?”

“Oh,” and Natasha smirks. “You remember earlier when I was trying to convince James of something in Russian and then when you asked I said I’d tell you later?”

Clint really has to start learning Russian. “Yes?”

“I was trying to persuade gorgeous over there to suggest to you that the two of you DP me.”

She says it so casually, with such fucking nonchalance, that it takes a second for Clint to grasp that she hasn’t said something super mundane and is, in fact, talking about him and James fucking her _at the same time_.

“Jesus fucking _Christ_ , Natasha.”

Natasha smirks and Clint’s dick is so interested.

“He wasn’t ready for that,” she continues.

Clint whines, pressing the heel of his hand to his crotch. A quick glance over to James reveals him biting his bottom lip, eyes huge and dark, and shit, it’s like a feedback loop. That just turns him on _more_.

“We are _trying_ ,” Clint grits out, “to have a serious conversation here.”

Natasha laughs. “But watching you squirm is _so fun_. But!” She claps her hands together and turns to James. “You didn’t answer the question: do you think you’d get jealous?”

James groans and slouches back into the couch cushions, covering his eyes with his hands. Clint can see the shape of James’ dick through his sweatpants and, _Jesus_ , Natasha is mean.

“I don’t – ” James starts and then cuts himself off. Takes a breath.

“Jesus Christ,” he mumbles after a moment, rubbing his face. Clint thinks he’s going to sit up then, but he doesn’t. He keeps his hands over his eyes and speaks to the ceiling.

“I don’t know,” he says. Honest. “I hope no, but I don’t know. It’s not – it’s.” He laughs, but it’s not a happy laugh. It’s more an I-can’t-believe-I’m-going-to-say-this laugh. “These two things might not be connected, but in my head they are, so.”

He drops his hands, but continues to look at the ceiling rather than at either of them.

“The most I’ve wanted anyone, if wanting is a scale and this is the pinnacle, was Steve when I was about fifteen. You know, that age when a breeze can make you hard. He was about ninety pounds soaking wet, but I ached for him so much my teeth hurt with it.”

The idea makes Clint’s chest hurt; that you can want that much and get nothing for it in return. He looks at Natasha and her face is twisted up even more than his probably is. Natasha would understand even better than him, of course. Age fifteen and Clint confused lust with love, wanted just about everyone, fucked and got fucked and got over it almost immediately.

“And it dulled, eventually, because a fifteen year old’s lust isn’t sustainable no matter who you are. So yeah, maybe everyone’s pinnacle of wanting is aged fifteen, but I dunno. He was completely unattainable in almost every way I wanted him and yet he was my best friend. It fucking sucked. But that’s not the point. The point is, you love the same guy, unrequited, for years, and wanting is this weird thing that is always compared, and he always won, yeah? And then, like I said, along came you two. And fifteen year old me might still have wanted Steve more, but that has dulled and twenty eight year old me wanted _you,_ and fucking hell.”

James gives both Clint and Natasha a brief glance before looking back to the ceiling.

“And it didn’t compare. And not like you were off the charts or something like that. More like, apples and oranges. You don’t compare them. They’re not the same.”

To be honest, Clint has no idea what this has got to do with jealousy, but it sounds like this is something James desperately needs to say out loud, so he doesn’t interrupt.

“And then, probably not related but in my head it is, when Steve was at college and I was being shot at in Iraq, he met this girl, Peggy. And I met her when I was on leave and, everything else aside, she was nice – is nice. Wonderful. I mean, she’s a goddamned friend now. She’s funny and warm and friendly and takes no shit and she’s – she’s perfect for Steve.”

James’ voice cracks slightly, but he keeps going.

“And she’s – she’s hot.”

James covers his eyes with his hands again.

“She’s fucking beautiful, okay? She’s beautiful and dating my – Steve, and I was at war and scared out of my fucking mind a lot of the time and I’d – you need release, yeah? And people in the Army fuck around about as much as you’d expect and I did too, but also. I’d sometimes,” he stutters, his mouth working like he can’t quite convince himself to say the words, “ _dream_ about – about me. And Steve. And. And Peggy. And – and wake up horny and confused and fucking _weirded out_ because that’s, that’s not right. It’s not – ”

James stops talking and Clint can’t quite work out why until he looks over to Natasha, whose eyes are huge and injured and who looks so distressed on James’ behalf. She catches his eye and, with hands that are shaking ever so slightly, she signs, _Crying_.

Something jolts in Clint’s chest. No. No, he’s not having that.

Natasha is inching closer to James on the couch so Clint comes around the other side and, as Natasha pulls James to her, Clint slides down, in between James and the couch arm. The space isn’t big enough, it’s uncomfortable as hell, but Clint’s not moving. He wraps his arms around James, around Natasha, and presses his nose just under James’ ear. This close he can hear James crying and he’s so fucking quiet, little gasps and sobs that make Clint want to punch this Steve even though he logically knows that this isn’t his fault at all. But still. He wants to punch _someone_.

Natasha's speaking to James, low and in Russian, so Clint just kisses him; sweet, gentle kisses along his neck and hairline. They sit like that for a while and, eventually, James calms down enough to continue.

“The point is,” James says, his voice rough and much, much quieter than before, “I think I was always destined to be the third wheel in someone else’s relationship. Or. Or something.” He sniffs and then continues. “‘Cause that way, like, you’ve – you’ve already found the person perfect for you, so I can just be me.”

And fuck, is that a telling statement in ways Clint isn’t happy about. This Steve seems to have done a number James’ self-esteem.

Or, Clint realises, maybe going to war and being blown up and getting horribly injured and having PTSD and then having a bucket load of realisations regarding your sexuality and preferences forced on you by two people who happily blundered their way into your life have done a number on his self-esteem.

To be honest, that seems more likely, or at least of equal weight.

Natasha sits back slightly and regards James. From where Clint is he can’t see much of James’ face, but what he can see is blotchy and red. Clint gives him a little squeeze.

“Okay,” she says gently. “We’ll unpack that series of revelations some other time. I’m happy, at least, that you think jealousy won’t be an issue. Does that mean Clint and I sleeping with people who aren’t you or each other won’t be an issue either?”

James nods. “For now, yeah.”

“Okay. But you tell us if that changes, okay?”

James nods and, as Natasha strokes a hand through James’ hair, he relaxes slightly, which somehow makes Clint’s position wedged between him and the couch arm even more uncomfortable. Clint hisses through his teeth.

“Shit, sorry,” James mumbles, and there’s a little undignified shuffling to get comfortable before Natasha continues again.

“Okay,” she says eventually. “So you don’t think jealousy will be an issue and you’re alright with us sleeping with people who aren’t each other or you – and, this is implied but I’m going to say it: we are both okay with you sleeping with other people if you want to.” She looks at Clint and he nods in agreement. “Only if you want to, though. This isn’t a competition as to who can break the most social conventions.” She smiles down at James and gets a small, amused smirk in response. “So I think, in terms of covering the basics, there’s only a couple more things that need to be addressed.”

She turns her smile on Clint before continuing.

“Clint and I are similar in many ways, largely because we both switch.”

She looks at James with that expression that Clint knows to mean _how much of this do I have to explain to you or can you keep up?_ James might not have had it levelled at him by Natasha nearly as much as Clint has, but he’s clearly good at working it out because he nods.

“Clint, however, is probably – and I quote the man himself – the ‘switchiest switch ever to switch’, which is appalling English but a very good description.” James snorts and Clint has to laugh because, yup, he absolutely did say that once.

“I’m not,” Natasha continues. “Most of the time I’d much rather be in charge, which I think you’ve worked out for yourself, yes?”

James grins and nods again.

“Good. But, and this is important, Clint does not do BDSM. Why is not up to me to divulge – ” and Clint is absolutely not going there today, no way, not unless he’s asked “ – but it means that if that is something you’re interested in trying, while I’m _very happy_ to do that with you Clint will not be there.”

James makes an eloquent, “Huh?”

“This is Natasha's way of saying, do you want to sleep with us separately or only the three of us together?” Clint supplies.

“Sort of yes, but also no,” Natasha admonishes, running a quick hand through his hair. “I don’t think it’s escaped your notice, Clint, that James here rather likes to be told what to do.”

James blushes at that and Clint grins, giving him a little squeeze.

“Nope, I’m pretty aware of that.”

“Semi-structured or structured BSDM would be the next logical step in that direction,” she replies. “He should know you won’t be there if he wants to explore that.”

There’s a brief silence while Clint turns that sentence over in his head.

“Fair, I guess,” he says after a moment. James might actually really get something out of that. Clint can imagine his eyes darkening at the thought of being tied up and, while it’s nothing Clint would ever want to do, James turned on is always a delightful mental image. “Though we do also need to work out if this is going to be the three of us together every time or sometimes us pairing off with you.”

The fact that Clint is always going to sleep with Natasha, regardless of if James is there or not, seems pretty obvious. He’s not going to discover he’s actually managed to fall in love only to limit when he can sleep with that person. That’s bullshit.

“I think,” James starts before pausing for a moment. “I think maybe only the three of us together to start with? As in, I only sleep with the two of you together and not separately. And then we, uh, revisit it at uh, a later date?”

James doesn’t sound very sure.

“So what you’re saying is that you don’t want to think about that right now,” Natasha says with a smile.

“I’m only just getting used to the… dynamics… as they stand now,” he replies, tentative, like he’s worried he’s saying he wrong thing. “I think… baby steps?”

“Works for me,” Clint says, somewhere between flippant and reassuring.

“And me,” Natasha chimes in.

“Okay,” James replies. And then again, “Okay.”

There’s a long silence. The smell of pizza is making Clint pretty hungry now and he’s just about to lean forward to grab a slice, thinking that all told this talk wasn’t too painful, when James speaks.

“Why don’t you like BDSM?”

Clint looks back at James, his mood plummeting. He’s really not sure what to say to that because – well, it’s so far from a nice conversation to have. His reasons are shitty; awful fucking reasons that he doesn’t like talking about and no one likes hearing about.

“Why do you want to know?” he asks eventually. Carefully. James should always feel he can ask stuff but, Jesus, Clint doesn’t want to talk about this.

James looks at him strangely and then shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe your reasons might give me reasons not to like it.”

Clint laughs, but bleakly. “Oh God, I really fucking hope not.”

He looks at Natasha, who shrugs in an it’s-up-to-you kind of way.

“Okay, so – ”

“You don’t have to answ – ”

“Shut up, Barnes.”

James snaps his mouth shut, looking kind of angry. Which: yeah, okay, that wasn’t super polite, but if you’re going to ask about this kind of shit you get everything all in one go before Clint loses his nerve. Because mostly Clint’s made his peace with this; his family are okay now, he’s an emotionally stable and semi-responsible adult, he has friends and a business and is in charge of other people’s wellbeing and isn’t fucking it up. He’s _okay_. But still, those sad eyes people give him about this just make him feel five years old and he didn’t claw his way to semi-functionality just to regress over sad eyes.

“Sorry, but, like, you’ve had your sad crying revelation and you asked so now it’s my turn and this is the only time we’re talking about this without alcohol, so just – yeah. Hush.”

Clint takes a deep breath, only peripherally noting James’ wary-slash-worried expression, before locking gazes with Natasha because he really needs to feel steady right now. This is what he was worried about; _this_ is why The Talk was something he never really wanted to do. And he was _so close_ to being able to skip this.

“Okay so. Partially I don’t like it because I had a really, really bad scene when I was like, eighteen or whatever,” and that is _true_ Natasha I am not stalling, he thinks at Natasha's slight frown “but mostly,” Clint takes a deep breath and continues “mostly it’s because my father beat the shit out of me as a kid and as a result restraints and impact play never really appealed.”

And here come the sad eyes and, _Christ_ , James has really sad eyes but, oh my God, this is a nice hug.

“Just to let you know,” James says after a moment. “I was a very, _very_ good Army sniper and my mercenary rates are pretty fucking high but I can totally give you a discount if you want.”

Clint hiccups and then just starts laughing because, holy shit. Outside of Natasha – and maybe Kate, but they were _very_ trashed when they had this particular conversation – this is the best reaction Clint has ever fucking had to his Sad Childhood Story.

James pulls away and, holding Clint’s face in his hands, he says, very seriously, “I’m really not kidding, Clint.”

“The shitstick’s dead already, James. Got trashed and drove into a tree when I was fourteen. It’s okay.”

“Dude,” James says very seriously. “The guys who blew me up are probably dead too, but it doesn’t make everything okay. The VA taught me that one and you can have it for free, no combat zones required.”

Clint rolls his eyes but can’t help smiling. He knows it’s true, knows this entire conversation about BDSM has just proved James right, but still. He reaches for Natasha's hand, tangling their fingers together over James’ hip, and when he meets her eyes again she gives him a small smile and then signs _I love you_. And because Clint is feeling emotionally vulnerable, he blushes all the way up to his hairline. He can fucking _feel_ it.

“Which reminds me,” Natasha says. “You need to pick a safe word. And we need to know if you can do this.”

She makes the Vulcan Live Long and Prosper hand signal. Natasha is so good at diffusing tension.

Clint signs _I love you_ back and Natasha smiles.

James mirrors her, confusion evident on his face. “I thought we weren’t doing BDSM? Why do I need a safe word?”

“Safe words are always useful,” Natasha replies. “Mine’s Kalashnikov, his is Waverley – though traffic lights and ‘stop’ obviously work too – and this,” she makes the Live Long and Prosper hand signal again, “is what you do when your mouth is… otherwise engaged. Pick one, remember it, and use it when you feel uncomfortable.”

James stares at them for a moment.

“You two,” he says, the widest grin on his face, “are  _such. Fucking. Nerds._  Oh my  _God._ ”

James wraps his arms around them both, hugging them tight, and Clint finds himself smushed into Natasha's boobs, which is the opposite of a bad thing.

“Okay, okay,” James continues, still laughing slightly. “I’ll pick, I dunno, Super Bowl. That work?”

Clint feels Natasha nod.

“Okay good.” He smiles up at them both. “Now, gimme pizza.”

 

The thing about James is that he’s just easy to talk to. He’s got a great sense of humour and isn’t afraid to go a little close to the wire, which Clint  _loves_. He’s just… easy. Fun. Great to have around. And once they’re past all the boring – but admittedly essential – serious stuff, he launches straight into a rant about anchovies on pizza that segues into a heated debate with Natasha about the merits of various restaurants around New York that they’ve been forced to go to due to work functions. Which leads to Clint’s favourite anecdote. To wit: The company of Very White Old Dudes that decided that a drag night would be a totally cool and edgy venue for a corporate function and the _utter shitshow_ that ensued when Maybelle Leen broke out her most risqué and provocative material, leading to much shade being thrown, a lot of the Very White Old Dudes storming out, and Clint laughing so hard he couldn’t stand up, couldn’t stop crying, and couldn’t really breathe either.

“And this was in _San Francisco_. Like, what did they expect?”

Clint has moved back to the wingback now, so he’s perfectly placed to watch James as he practically gasps for air while Natasha falls into that vaguely creepy silent laughter she does when she finds something _really_ funny.

“So Maybelle starts singing The Vagina Song at the top of her voice – you know, to Bruno Mars’ Billionaire? – with Rachael Slurr, who looks like Idris Elba but with a fucking _beard_ , and this guy just fucking _loses it_. I swear he was about a second away from a heart attack. I was supposed to be chucking them out or whatever, but I was crying laughing and could hardly stand, so.”

“ _Oh my God,_ ” James gasps. “We need to suggest to Stark that the next fundraiser he does should be at a drag show. Can you imagine some of the investors?”

“Can you imagine _Stane_?” Natasha manages in response. “Or – ”

“ _Fury!_ ” they cry out in unison before collapsing into laughter again.

“Well, hell,” Clint says grinning, “as long as you let them know what they’re in for, I’m sure they’d be fucking delighted. I know so many queens who love making people like that uncomfortable. Just, you know, warn them first.”

“I’m gonna mention it to Pepper,” Natasha says, struggling to get her breath back.

“Fuck that, I’m just gonna call up Stark.”

Natasha sends him a sly look. “I thought you weren’t friends?”

“Dude, I am his favourite R&D Monkey. I’m not his friend, he just yells stats at me and will pick up my internal calls if I start the sentence with ‘your math is wrong’.”

“‘Your math is wrong, have a work function in a drag club’?” Clint says through laughter.

“Hey!” James replies, grinning. “He’ll pick up, that’s for sure.”

They demolish the pizza and Clint breaks out the beer. It’s closing on three in the morning when he suddenly becomes aware that James might have fallen asleep on the couch while he and Natasha chatted quietly about Batcaves and x-ray vision and whatever the hell it is that they end up talking about at three in the morning, almost horizontal and unable to keep their eyes open.

“We should move,” Natasha mumbles. “Your couch sucks.”

“You take that back,” Clint grouses, levering himself out of the wingback and almost over balancing.

“C’mon,” he pokes James in the side. “Bed time for sleepy Barneses.”

James grumbles but doesn’t wake. It takes a good five minutes to get him off the couch and up the stairs, where the three of them are confronted by the unpleasant reminder that none of them remade the bed after their impromptu sex-and-nap.

“Fuck,” Clint says quietly, while James just stares at the covers listlessly like he’s not too sure what he’s seeing.

There’s a drawn out silence, like all three of them are waiting for the bed to magically fix itself, before Natasha says, “I did the sheets, you’re making the bed.” She then groans. “The sheets are still in the wash. Urgh. Okay, I’ll _do_ the sheets, you do the bed,” before stomping off down the stairs again.

James groans, long and drawn out, before collapsing on the bare mattress.

“Oh no you don’t,” Clint says hauling him upright again before he can really settle in. “Up. I want sheets on the bed and you’re helping.”

“No,” James mumbles.

“Yes,” Clint replies, throwing bedsheets at James which he completely fails to catch.

James sighs like a petulant child – and Clint can’t help but grin to himself; James is _so fucking cute_ – before grabbing a pillow and pillowcase and stuffing one into the other with unnecessary force.

“Hey,” Clint says suddenly, halfway through getting the duvet in the cover, “can I ask you something?”

Clint doesn’t really need an answer to his question about whether he’s being disingenuous any more. He realised sometime during their conversation about preferences that him being honest with James is practically the opposite of being disingenuous and that, in a way, asking would be a tacit admission that he doesn’t trust James to have thought this through. But then, on the other hand, asking would also show that _he’s_ thought this through; that he’s aware of their differences as people and wants to make absolutely sure that they’re all on the same page. To show he’s thought about it; to prove to himself that he can grow and change and work this stuff out even though sometimes – not often, but sometimes – his brain decides to remind him of the helpless, churning confusion he felt when he was fourteen. But if there’s one thing Clint feels he can thank his shitbag father for, it’s the realisation that there are more important things to worry about than what other people think of his life choices.

James peers at him blearily and it takes a moment for Clint to realise that that’s about as much acknowledgement as James can muster right now.

“Do you think I’m being disingenuous in maybe-dating you because I might not fall for you?”

Clint guesses that the real reason he has to ask is because of the word ‘you’. Does _James_ think that? Because if he does, that’s something they’ll have to talk about.

James just continues staring at him and Clint has the strange experience of _watching_ James pull all his focus onto Clint; of watching as his gaze becomes more focused and more present and more intense. It’s sort of hot to be honest.

James snorts just as Natasha steps back into the room.

“That’s a dumb fucking question,” he says.

“Huh?”

“One,” James mumbles, going back to pulling the topsheet on the mattress, “I wouldn’t be here if I thought you were being disingenuous. Two, news flash Barton: no one knows if they’ll fall for the person they’re dating. That’s what dating is.”

“Told you,” Natasha says quietly, crawling onto the freshly made bed and gesturing imperiously for Clint to _hurry the fuck up_ and finish with the duvet. She’s wearing one of Clint’s really, really old high school t-shirts. He has no fucking clue why he’s kept it, but here it is, with the text and hawk logo so faded that they’re practically invisible.

She looks beautiful.

“Duvet, Clint,” she says with a smile to make it clear he’s been staring at her for too long.

“Right, yes,” he replies, returning to his task as James strips unselfconsciously beside him and crawls into bed.

Clint flings the duvet over them both before going into the en suite to brush his teeth – proper sleepwear can wait, but teeth brushing can’t – and when he comes back out he finds Natasha has already fallen asleep and there’s just enough room for him to squeeze in next to James because, as usual, Natasha is hogging all the covers.

“Hey,” James says quietly, his hand coming up to stop Clint from removing his hearing aids just yet. His nails are still sky blue and it makes Clint smile. “You sure do worry a lot for such a confident guy.”

“I am a walking contradiction.”

James stares at him for a moment.

“You did not just quote Panic! At The Disco to me,” he says flatly.

“It was Green Day actually,” Clint replies archly, “but I’ll definitely remember that you’re secretly an emo teen.”

James rolls his eyes and pokes him in the side. “Shut up and go to sleep, Barton.”

So Clint smiles, and unhooks his hearing aids, and does just that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest, I think there's a good chance I'll write more of this verse. Just... maybe not soon.


End file.
